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ClassjB.F'lSi 
Book £)?J 



%7o 



MENTAL SCIENCE; 

A OOMPEBDIUM OF PSTOHOLOGY, 

AND THE ^ / ^ 

HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 



DESIGNED AS A 



TEXT-BOOK FOR HIGnSCIIOOLS AND COLLEGES. 



BY 

ALEXANDER BAIN, M. A., 

■ ! 

PEOFESSOR OF LOGIC AND MENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN, 

AUTHOR OF "THE SENSES AND THE INTELLECT," ''THE EMOTIONS 

OF THE WILL," ETC., ETC. 



NEW YORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

90, 92" & 94 GRAND STREET. 

18T0. 



2.^ 



^^'^^/ 



WOEKS OF PEOFESSOR BAIN, 

PUBLISHED BT 

D. APPLETOIvr & CO. 
A MANUAL OF EHETOEIG AUB ENGLISH 

COMPOSITION. 343 pages. Price $1.75. 

(Now in Press.) 

MORAL SCIENGE; A COMPENDIUM OF ETHICS, 

This is a continuation of the present work, and based npon it. 



Entered, according to Act of ddngiess, in the year 1868, by 

D. APPLETO^q:' & CO., 

In the Clerk's 0£ace of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 

District of New York. 



\ 



^^\ 



X-' 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 



The present treatise contains a Systematic Exposition 
of Mind, and a History of the leading Question's in Men- 
tal Philosophy, 

The Exposition of Mind is, for the most part, an 
abridgment of my two volumes on the subject. I have 
singled out, and put in conspicuous type, the leading posi- 
tions ; and have given a sufficient number of examples to 
make them understood. It is not to be expected that the 
full effect of the larger exposition can be produced in the* 
shorter; still, there may be an occasional advantage in 
the more succinct presentation of complicated doctrines. 

As regards the controverted Questions, I have entered 
fully into the history of opinion, so as' to exhibit the dif- 
ferent views, both formerly, and at present, entertained on 
each. Nominalism and Realism, the Origin of Knowl- 
edge in the mind. External Perception, Beauty, and Free- 
will, are the chief subjects thus treated. 

Aberdeen, April^ 1868. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE TO THE AMERICAN 

EDITION. 



The author of the present volume, Mr. Alexander 
Bain, is Professor of Logic, Mental Philosophy, and Eng- 
lish Literature, in the University of Aberdeen, in Scot- 
land, and i.s also Examiner in Logic and Moral Philosophy 
in the University of London. His contributions to the 
Science of Mind have given him a high reputation in 
Europe both as an original inquirer and as an authorita- 
tii^e expositor of the most advanced views ; and as this is 
his first work upon these subjects which has been repub- 
lished in this country, a few words respecting its claims 
and the author's position will be appropriate in this place. 

It is now generally admitted that, as regards its capa- 
bility of progress, expansion, and the improvement of its 
methods, Mental Science forms no exception to the other 
branches of growing knowledge. Those who are familiar 
with the recent progress of thought understand that the 
later advances of Physiology have brought that subject 
into very close relation with questions of Mind. So im- 
portant are the data thus contributed, and so intimate the 
mutual dependence of these subjects, that it is no longer 



g INTEODUOTORY NOTICE. 

possible to study Mind, in the true scientific spirit, with- 
out taking into account its material accompaniments. The 
method hitherto employed of studying mental phenomena 
by introspection is not superseded, but it has undergone 
an important extension. ^N'o system of Mental Philoso- 
phy can ever dispense with the necessity of observing and 
analyzing the processes of thought and feeling as they are 
revealed in consciousness ; but it is equally certain that 
any system which stops with this, and neglects the living 
organism by which thought and feeling are manifested and 
conditioned, can no longer command the approval of those 
who seek a full and scientific acquaintance with the subject. 
This inclusion of its physiological factors, with the conse- 
quient widening of its sphere, not only brings the subject 
of Mental Philosophy into harmonious relation with the 
other sciences, and gives to its method more precision 
and completeness, but it also leads to certain practical 
advantages of much importance. 

The old system, which occupied itself with inquiries 
concerning mind as an isolated abstraction, threw but lit- 
tle light upon the real psychical mechanism and workings 
of human nature. In this respect it was narrow and defi- 
cient, and, failing to reach practical ends, it became obnox- 
ious to the charge of ' fruitlessness.' Indeed, its adherents, 
so far from denying this imputation, have actually at- 
tempted to turn it into a merit. Holding to the ancient 
doctrine that all quest of knowledge for its mere vulgar 
uses is degrading, they maintain that the object of mental 
studies is not so much the establishment of truth for the 
sake of the benefits which may be derived from it, as the' 
intellectual interest and pleasure of its pursuit ; and the 
claims of metaphysical studies are therefore made to rest 
chiefly on their alleged value as an educational gymnastic. 
This was avoII enough so long as all knowledge Avas in an 
imperfect state, and all studies fruitless of application — so 
long, for example, as physics pursued by a false method 
remained barren of valuable results. But when the clew 



INTEODUCTORY NOTICE. f^ 

to the understanding of Nature was once ^seized, and sci- 
ence after science arose, clear, positive, and demonstrable, 
followed by results so practical, beneficent, and universal 
as to give a new impulse to civilization, it was impossible 
that the old aims of study should not undergo profound 
revision, and their practical bearings upon human welfare 
rise to a higher appreciation. Metaphysics alone has re- 
fused to change, and, clinging to its old method, has stood 
as a landmark of the past, stationary in the midst of prog- 
ress, vacant of benign influence, while all other knowl- 
edges were blossoming and fruiting in the useful service 
of society. It was, therefore, natural that this study, chal- 
lenged by the spirit of the age, should decline in interest 
as it has done, and fall under the protection of tradition. 

But that the study of mind in its larger aspects, that 
is, the actual study of man as a thinking, feeling, and ac- 
tive being, must issue in the noblest applications, is beyond 
all rational question. In the whole circle of human inter- 
ests there is no need so vital and urgent as for a better 
understa?iding of the laws of mind and character. We 
may dispense with this kind of information or with that, 
but the acquirement of true ideas concerning human na- 
ture, the springs of its action, the modes of its working, 
and the conditions and limits of its improvement, is indis- 
pensal^le for all. Parents need it for the training of their 
children ; teachers in the instruction of their pupils ; em- 
ployers in their intercourse with the employed ; physicians 
in treating their patients ; clergymen in the management 
of their congregations; judges and juries in the adminis- 
tration of justice, and statesmen in legislating for the peo- 
ple. In short, whoever lives in social relations requires 
this knowledge for better and higher guidance in the 
whole sphere of life. The extension of the subject of 
Mental Philosophy so as to include the physiological ele- 
ments and conditions, and help to a better understanding 
of the constitution of man, is therefore an important step 
in the direction of our greatest needs. Human nature is 



8 INTRODUCTOEY NOTICE. 

no longer to be dealt with by the student in fragments, 
but as a vital whole. In place of the abstraction mind, is 
substituted the living being, compounded of mind and 
body, to be contemplated, like any other object of science, 
as actually presented to our observation and in our expe- 
rience. This enlargement of the domain of mental studies, 
while it is but a part of the general evolution of knowl- 
edge, relieves the subject of the reproach of emptiness, and 
places it at the head of all the sciences in the scale of di- 
rect and comprehensive utility. The study of Mind has 
always ranked as the noblest and most elevating of intel- 
lectual pursuits ; but its questions can certainly lose noth- 
mg in interest or dignity, as it is more and more clearly 
perceived that they involve the highest concernments of 
humanity. 

Nor are the benefits here claimed by any means still 
prospective ; much has already been done. The labors of 
various eminent men of the present and past generation, 
such as Sir Charles Bell, Marshall Hall, Sir Benjamin Bro- 
die, Drs. Laycock and C. rpenter. Sir Henr^ x^olland, Her- 
bert Spencer, and others xia\ resulted in the establish- 
ment of a body of facts and principles in mental physiol- 
ogy^ which has variously influenced the popular works upon 
mental philosophy from Abercrombie to the present time. 
But while the authors here enumerated have been mainly 
occupied with the physiological elucidations, there was 
still wanting the thinker who, taking up the whole subject 
in an impartial spirit, and giving due weight to what is 
valuable in both the old statement and the new, should in- 
corporate all the needed elements into a harmonious, com- 
prehensive, and unitary scheme of Mental Science. 

Professor Bain has proved to be the man for this under- 
taking. He has a distinguished place among the original 
cultivators of mental science in the aspect here consid- 
ered. Thirteen years ago he brought out an elaborate 
work on " The Senses and the Intellect," of whicli the 
third edition is now in press. This was followed by " Tlie 



INTEODUCTOEY NOTICE. 9 

Emotions and the Will," completing a systematic exposi- 
tion of the mind. His views were afterward still further 
developed and applied in a treatise on '' The Study of 
Character." In these works, while following out the 
scheme of psychology as laid down by Reid, Stewart, 
Brown, James Mill, and Sir William Hamilton, the author 
pushed to a still higher point the analysis and generaliza- 
tion of the mental phenomena, and presented a large stock 
of original examples and applications. He was the first 
to introduce into psychology a full handling of all the 
known physiological accompaniments of the mind, and to 
show how" valuable are the lights which can be derived 
from them. His works have now the leading place in the 
teaching of mental philosophy in Great Britain ; and the 
estimate placed upon them by competent judges is exem- 
plified by the following quotations. Mr. John Stuart Mill, 
in an able analysis of " The Senses and the Intellect," in 
the Edinburgh Review^ remarked : 

"Bain has st4.pj,^.v beyond all his pred^kiTessors, and has produced an 
exposition of the raind, of the sch*^^]^ of ^ocke and Hartley, equally re- 
markable in what it has successfuiit doii^ /^and in what it has wisely re- 
frained from — an exposition which deserves to take rank as the foremost 
of its class, and as marking the most advanced point which the d posteriori 
psychology has reached " 

*' Belonging essentially to the association school, he has not only, with 
great clearness and copiousness, illustrated, popularized, and enforced by 
fresh arguments all which that school had already done toward the expla- 
nation of the phenomena of mind, but he has added so largely to it, that 
those who have the highest appreciation and the warmest admiration of 
his predecessors, arc likely to be the most struck with the great advance 
which this treatise constitutes over what those predecessors had done, and 
the improved position in which it places their psychological theory. Mr. 
Bain possesses, indeed, a union of qualifications peculiarly fitting him for 
what, in the language of Dr. Brown, may be called the physical investiga- 
tion of mind. With analytic powers comparable to those of big most dis- 
tinguished predecessors, he combines a range of appropriate knowledge 
still wider than theirs ; having made a more accurate study than perhaps 
any previous psychologist of the whole round of the physical sciences, on 
which the mental depend both for their methods, and for the necessary 
material substratum of their theories ; while those sciences, also, are them- 
selves in a far higher state of advancement than in any former age. This 
is especially true of the. science most nearly allied, both in subject and 
method, with psychological investigations, the science of Physiology ; 
which Hartley, Brown, and Mill had unquestionably studied, and knew 



10 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

perhaps as well as it was known by any one at the time when they studied 
it, but in a superficial manner compared with Mr. Bain ; the science hav- 
ing in the mean while assumed almost a new aspect, from the important 
discoveries which have been made in all its branches, and especially in 
the functions of the nervous system, since even the latest of those authors 
wrote." 

Professor Masson, of the University of Edinburgh, in 
his late work entitled "Recent British Philosophy/' 
speaking of Mr. Bain's treatise, says : " It is, perhaps, the 
richest natural history of the Human Mind in the lan- 
guage — the most fully mapped out and the most abun- 
dant in happy detail and illustration." 

The works here so decisively commended by the high- 
est authorities have not been republished in this country ; 
they are besides expensive to import, and are too volumin- 
ous for popular use. The present volume is an abstract 
of them, and presents in a compressed and lucid form the 
views which are there more extensively elaborated. It is 
not only the best but it is the only manual of Mental 
Philosophy yet produced which combines a clear exposi- 
tion of the laws of feeliuQ- and thouQ-ht, with a full state- 
ment of their physiological connections so far as known, 
together Avith a succinct historical review of the progress 
of opinion upon controverted questions in the domain of 
Mind. It was prepared by the author at the solicitation 
of many who wished a statement of his views in a form 
convenient for general use, and of gentlemen engaged in 
teaching, who desired a work for their classes which should 
represent the present state of thought upon the subject: 
and as the educational want which it meets in England is 
equally urgent here, it has been republished in the belief 
that it will be appreciated by the public and welcomed by 
our best instructors. E. L. Y. 

New York, June^ 1868. 



c 



TABLE OF CONTENTOTIf^ 



INTRODUCTION. 

CHAP. I. 

DEFINITION AND DIVISIONS OF MIND. 

Pagb. 

1. Iliiman Knowledge falls under two departments ... ... .1 

2. The Object department marked by Extension ; the Subject, by 

the absence of this property ... ... ... ..'. ib, 

3. Subject Experience — Mind proper — has three functions, Feeling, 

Will, and Thought. Other classifications of Mind ... ... 2 

4. Order of arrangement for exposition ... ... ... 3 

5. Concomitance of Mind and a Material Organism .., ,., 4 

CHAP. 11. 
THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 

1. The Brain is the principal organ of Mind. Proofs ... ... 5 

2. The Nervous System consists of a Central mass, and ramifying 

Nerves ... ... ... ... ... ... ib, 

3. The nervous substance made up of white and of grey matter. 

T^hQ Jibres diT\di ih.Q corpuscles ... ... ... ... 6 

4. The Central nerves, or cerebro- spinal axis composed of parts. I. 

The Spinal Cord ; the Eeflex Movements. II. The Brain. 
Parts of the Brain: (1) Medulla Oblongata, (2) Pons Varolii, 
(3) Cerebral Hemispheres, (4) Cerebellum; their several func- 
tions ... ... ... ... ... ... 7 

5. The nerves are divided into Cerebral and Spinal ... ... 11 

(i. The function of a nerve is to transmit influence ... ... ib. 

7. Incarrying and outcarrying nerves ... ... ... 12 



BOOK I. 

MOVEMENT, SENSE, AND INSTINCT. 

CHAP. I. 
MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

1. Muscular Feelings compared with Sensations. The muscular 

system ... ... ... ... ... ... 13 

2, Spontaneous Activity of the system. Proofs and illustrations 14 



VI CONTENTS. 

THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. Tage. 

3. Thrpo classes of feelings connected with muscle ,„ ,., 17 

Feelings of Muscular Exercise, 

4. The dead sirainy or action without movement. Systematic De- 

scription : Physical Side ; Mental Side. Plan of describing 

the Feelings generally, Note „ ... ... ,.. 18 

5. Examples of the dead strain ... ... ,.* ... 22 

6. Exertion with movement ... ,.. ... ... ,,, ib, 

7. Slow movements ; allied to repose and passivity . ... ... ib, 

S. Waxing and waning movements ... ... ... ,,. 23 

9. Quick movements; their exciting character... ... ... ib, 

10. Passive movements : the stimulus of riding ... ,», 24 

Discriminative or Intellectual Sensibility of Muscle. 

11. With every feeling, we have consciousness oi degree ... ib, 

12. Consciousness of Exertion, or Expended Force. The Mechanical 

property of matter .. ... ... ... ... ib, 

13. Consciousness of degrees of Continuance of exertion, either as 

dead strain or as movement. Time. Space ... ... 25 

14. Consciousness of the Velocity of Movement... ... ... 26 



CHAP. 11. 
SENSATION. 

1. Sensation defined ... ... ... ... .. 27 

2. Sensations classified. Defects of tlie enumeration of the Five 

Senses. Omission of Organic Sensations ... ... ib, 

SENSATIONS OP ORGANIC LIFE. 

Organic 3hisctilar Feelings, 

3. Pains of injury of muscle. Fatigue and Eepose ... ... 28 

Organic Sensations of Nerve. 

4. Acute Diseases of the nerves, nervous Fatigue, Healthy nerves, 

Stimulants ... ... ... ... ... ... 30 

Organic Feelings of the Circidation and Nutrition, 

5. Thirst, Inanition, arrested circulation, good and ill health ... 31 

Feelings of Fespiration, 

6. Suffocation, Closeness, Exhilaration of change to pure air ... 32 

Feelings of Heat and Cold, 

7. Pain of Chillncss, Pleasure of transition to warmth ... ... 33 

Sensations of the Alimentary Canal, 

8. Classification of the kinds of Food 

9. Feelings of Digestion : Kelish and Repletion, Hunger, Nausea, 

Dyspepsia ... ... ... ... ... ••« 34 



CONTENTS. VU 

SENSE OF TASTE. PaGE. 

1. Objects of Taste : chiefly the materials of Food ... ... 36 

2. The Tongue ... ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. Sensations of Taste . ... ... ... ... ... 37 

4. Tastes in Sympathy with the Stomach : Relishes and Disgusts ib. 
6. Tastes proper : Sweet and Bitter ... ... ., ... 38 

6. Tastes involving Touch : Saline, Alkaline, Sour, Astringent, 

Fiery, Acrid .. ... ... ... .., ib, 

SENSE OF SMELL. 

1. Smell related to the Lungs ... ... ... ... 39 

2. Objects of Smell : gaseous or volatile bodies ... ... ib. 

3. Development of odours, by heat, light, and moisture ... ib. 

4. Diffusion of odours ... ... ... ... ... 40 

5. The Nose ^ ... ... ... ^ .. ... ... ib. 

6. Mode of action of odours a process of oxidation ... ... ib. 

7. Sensations of Smell : in sympathy with the lungs are Fresh and 

Close odours .. ... ... ... ... 41 

8. Proper olfactory sensibility : Fragrant odours and the opposite ib. 
9' Odours involving tactile sensibility : Pungency .., ... 42 

SENSE OF TOUCH. 

1. Touch an intellectual Sense. The Objects, solid bodies ... 43 

2. Sensitive surface the Skin, interior of the mouth, and nostrils... ib. 

3. Action simple pressure ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

4. Sensations: (Emotional) Soft Touch, *Pun gent Touch, Tempera- 

ture, Tickling and acute pains ... ... ... ... 44 

5. Intellectual Sensations ; Plurality of Points — Weber's experi- 

ments, Pressure ... ... ... ... ... 45 

6. Combinations of Touch with Muscular Feeling: Resistance, 

Hardness and Softness, Poughness and Smoothness, Exten- 
sion or the Co-existing in Space ... ... ... 47 

SENSE OF HEARING. 

1. Objects of Hearing — material bodies in a state of tremor ... 51 

2. The Ear ... ... ... ... il,, 

3. The mode of action in hearing ..." ... ... ,, ^2 

4. Sensations of Sound: General Emotional effects— Sweetness, 

Intensity, Volume ... ... ... .. ,,. id, 

5. Musical Sounds : Pitch, Waxing and Waning, Harmony and 

Discord ... .. ... ... ... ... 54 

6. Intellectual Sensations : Clearness, Timbre, Articulate sounds, 

Distance and Direction ... ... ... ... 55 

SENSE OF SIGHT. 

1. Objects of Sight ... ... ... ... ... 56 

2. The Eye ... ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. ]\lode of action, in the first place an optical effect ... ... 59 

4. Binocular Vision. Seeing objects erect by an inverted image 60 

5. Sensations of Sight (Optical) : Light, Colour, Lustre ... ib. 

6- Sensations involving the Movements of the Eye : Visible Move- 
ment, Visible Form, Apparent Size, Distance, Volume, Visible 

Situation .. ... ... ... . ... 62 



VIU CONTENTS. 

CHAP. HI. 

THE APPETITES. 

The Appetites defined. Sleep, Exercise and Bepose, Thirst, 
Hunger, Sex ... ... ... . , .„ ,.. 67 



CHAP. IV. 
THE INSTINCTS. 

Instinct defined. Instincts classified ... ,., ... (Jg 

THE PRIMITIVE COMBINED MOVEMENTS. 

1. The Locomotive Ehythm ... ... ... ... 69 

2. Its Analysis ,. ... ... . ... ... ... ib, 

3. Primitive Associated movements ... ... ... .,, 70 

4. Harmony of Pace in the movements ... ... ... ib, 

THE INSTINCTIVE PLAY OF PEELING. 

1. Union of Mind and Body shown in the Expression of Feeling ib, 

2. Physical Accompaniments of the Feelings : Movements of the 

Face ... ... ... ... ... ... 71 

3. Voice and Pespiratorj^ Muscles ... ... ... .. 72 

4. Muscles of the Body generally ... ... ... ... 73 

5. Organic Effects : Lachrymal Organs, Sexual Organs, Digestion, 

Cutaneous changes, Heart, Lacteal Gland in Women ... ib. 

6. G-eneral principle connecting Pleasure and Pain with bodily 

functions. Proofs of the Principle. Laughter and Sobbing 75 

7. Operation of Stimulants ... ... ... ... 78 

8. Law of Self-conservation ... ... ... ... 79 

THE INSTINCTIVE GERMS OF THE WILL. 

1. Voluntary power, a bundle of acquisitions ... ... ... ih. 

2. Primitive foundations of the Will. I. — Spontaneity ... ib, 

3. II. — Law of Self-conservation ... ... ... ... 80 

4. Accident brings about coincidences between feelings and ap- 

propriate movements ... ... ,. ... ... ib, 

5. III. — The -coincidences are confirmed by a process of association 81 



BOOK II. 

THE INTELLECT. 

1. The intellectual functions commonly expressed by Memory, 

Keason, Imagination, &;c. ... . . ... ... S2 

2. The primary attributes of Intellect — JDiffcrcncc^ Agreement^ 

Retentiveness ... .. • . ... .. ,., H* 

3. Applications of a Knowledge of the Intellectual Powers ... 84 



CONTENTS. . IX 

CHAP. I. 

EETENTIYENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

Page. 

1. Retentiveness mostly comprehended under the Law of Conti- 

guity ... ... ... ... ... ... 85 

2. Statement of the Law ... ... ... ... ... ib, 

MOVEMENTS. 

3. Spontaneous and Instinctive actions strengthened by exercise 86 

4. Conjoined or Aggregated Movements ... ... ... ih. 

.5. Successions of Movements ... ... ... ... 87 

6. Intervention of Sensations in trains of Movement ... ... ib, 

7. Conditions governing the rate of Acquisition generally ... ib. 

8. Circumstances favouring the adhesion of Movements... .. 88 

9. All acquirements suppose Physical Vigour ... ... ... 89 

IDEAL FEELINGS OF MOVEMEJ^T. — THE SEAT OP iDEAg, 

10. Association of Ideas of Movement ... ... .. ... ib, 

11. The seat of Ideas the same as of Sensations or Actualities ... ib. 

12. The tendency of Ideas to become Actualities a source of activitv 

distinct from the Will ... ... ... ... ..".90 

13. The principle applied to explain Sympathy ... ... ... 91 

14.' Points common to the Idea and to the Actuality ... ■ ... 92 

15. Ideas of Movement may be associated ... .. ... ih. 

16. The rate of adhesion follows the law of Actual Movement ... ib. 

17. Movement is mentally known as expended energy in special 

muscles ... ... ... .. ... ... ib, 

SENSATIONS OF THE SAME SENSE. 

18. In all the senses, different sensations are associated together ... 93 

19. Separate ideas become self-sustaining by repetition ... ... ih. 

20. Association of Sensations of Touch ... .. ... ... 94 

21. Law of the Rate of Acquirement in Touch ... ... ... ib. 

22. The acquirements of Touch most numerous in the blind ... 95 

23. Associations of Sounds; Musical and Articulate Sounds ... ib. 

24. Associations of Sights : Forms and Coloured surfaces ... 97 

SENSATIONS OF DIFFERENT SENSES. 

25. Movements with Sensations. Muscular Ideas with Sensations ; 

Architecture. Sensations with Sensations ... ... 98 

26. Law of the Rate of such acquirements ... ... ... 100 

27. Localization of the Bodily Feelings ... ... .. 101 

28. Our body is an object fact with subject associations ... ... 102 

29. Associations makes differences in sensations alike in quality ... ib. 

ASSOCIATES WITH PLEASUKE AND PAIN. 

30. Pleasure and Pain can persist and be reproduced ideally ... ih. 

31. Law of the association ... ... ... ... .. 103 

32. The Special Emotions converted into Affections ... ... 104 

33. Association of emotions with indifferent objects : Ritual ... ib. 

34. The interest of Ends transferred to the Means : Money, Formali- 

ties, Truth ... ... ... ... ... ... 105 

35. Influence of association in Fine Art. Alison's Theory ... 106 



X CONTENTS. 

Page. 

36. The Language of the Feelings has to be acquired ... ... 107 

37. The Signs of Happiness are cheering to behold ... ... «^- 

38. Memories of Pleasure and Pain ... ... ... ... 108 

39. Association has a share in the Moral Sentiment ... ... t^» 

ASSOCIATIONS OF VOLITION". 

40. Contiguous association of actions and states of feeling ... 109 

NATUEAL OBJECTS. 

41. Our ideas of external nature are associations of sensible qualities ib, 

42. The Naturalist mind represents disinterested association ... 110 

43. In minds generally, the feelings sway the recollections of nature ih. 

NATURAL AND HABITUAL CONJUNCTIONS; 

44. Association of things habitually conjoined in our view . ... «^. 

45. Maps, Diagrams, and Pictorial Hepresentations ... ... Ill 

SUCCESSIONS, 

46. Successions of Cycle, Evolution, Cause and Efifect ... ... ib. 

MECHANICAL ACQUISITIONS. 

47. Summary of conditions of Mechanical Acquirement ... ... 114 

48. Proper duration of esercises ... ... ... ... 115 

ACaUISITIONS OF LA.NGUA.GE. 

49. Oral Language involves the Voice and the Ear ... ... 116 

50. Language a case of heterogeneous adhesion ... .. ib. 

51. Language includes fixed trains of words ... .. ... 117 

52. Operation of Special Interest in lingual acquisitions ... .. ib, 

53. Elocution involves an Ear for Cadence ... ... ... 118 

54. AVritten language appeals to the sense of Visible Form ... ib. 
65. Short methods of acquiring language ... ... ... ib. 

56. Verbal adhesiveness an aid to the memory of expressed Know- 

ledge ... ... ... ... ... ... 119 

PvETENTIVENESS IN SCIENCE. 

57. Knowledge, as Science, is clothed in artificial symbols ... ib, 

58. The Object Sciences are Concrete or Abstract ... ... ib. 

59. 'J'he Subject Sciences are grounded on self-consciousness ... 120 

60. Circumstances favouring acquirements in mental Science ... ib. 

61. Supposed faculty of Self-Consciousness ... ... .. 121 

BUSINESS, OR PRACTICAL LIFE. 

62. Acquirements in the higher branches of Industrj^ ... ... 122 

ACQUISITIONS IN THE FINE ARTS. 

63. Fine Art constructions give refined pleasure ... ... ih. 

64. Conditions of Acquisition in Fine Art ... ... ... 123 

HISTORY AND NARRATIVE. 

65. History the succession of events as narrated ... ... t^. 

66. Transactions witnessed impress themselves as Sensations and 

Actions ... ... ... .. ... ... 124 

67. Events narrated have the aid of the Verbal Memory ' ... ib. 



CONTENTS. XI 

OUR PAST LIFE. PAGE. 

68. The complex current of each one's existence •„ ... 124 

CONCLUDINa OBSERVATIONS ON BETENTIVENESS. 

69. Existence of a Retentive faculty for things generally. Superior 

plasticity of early years ; Limitation of acquirements ; Tempo- 
rary adhesiveness ... ... ... ... ... 125 

CHAP.^IL 

• AGREEMENT- LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

1. Statement of the Law ... ... ... ... ... 127 

2. Similarity, in one mode, implied under Contiguity .. ... 128 

3. Impediments to the revival of the past through similarity ... ib, 

FEEBLENESS OF IMPRESSION. 

4. Impediment of Feebleness or Faintness, By what peculiarities 

overcome. Conditions of reproduction by Similarity ... 129 

SIMILARITY IN DIVERSITY — SENSATIONS. 

5. Impediment of Diversity. Special condition for this case ... 130 

6. Movements and Feelin'^;s of Movement identified ..." ... 131 

7. Sensations of Organic Life ... ... ... ... 132 

8. Tastes. Identification ending in Classification ... ... 133 

9. Touch. Effects generalized and classified ... ... ... 134 

10. Hearing. Articulate language identified under diversity of 

utterance and cadence. Diversity of Meaning ... ... ib. 

11. Sight. Colours, Forms, and their combinations ... ... 136 

12. Effects common to the Senses generally ... ... ... 137 

CONTIGUOUS AGGREGATES— cox JUNCTIONS. 

13. Objects affecting a Phirality of Senses ... . ... 138 

14. Aggregates of associated Properties and Uses. The Steam En- 

gine. Davy's discovery of the composition of the alkalies. 
Botany and Zoology ... ... ... , ,,, ib, 

PHENOMENA OF SUCCESSION. 

15. Successions identified under diversities. Cycle, Evolution, Cause 

and Effect. Newton's discovery of gravitation ... ... 141 

REASONING AND SCIENCE IN GENERAL. 

16. Generalizing power of the mind gives birth to : I. — Definition ; 

II. — Induction; III. — Deduction. Reasoning by Analogy 143 

17. Scope of the Eeasoning Faculty ... ... ... ... Ii6 

BUSINESS AND PRACTICE. 

18. Discoveries in Practice due, in part, to Similarity ... ... ih, 

ILLUSTRATIVE COMPARISONS AND LITERARY ART. 

19. Figures of Similitude abound in all great works of literary 

genius. Bunyan, Shakeepeare, Bacon, Milton ... ... 149 



XU CONTENTS. 

THE FINE ARTS IN" GENERAL. PaSE, 

20. Similarity exemplified in certain of the Fine Arts ... ... 149 

SIMILARITY IN ACQUISITION AND MEMORY. 

21. Labour of Acquisition saved by the tracing of similarities ... 150 



CHAP. III. 

COMPOUNIi ASSOCIATION. 

1. Associations may combine their force. Statement of the Law 151 

COMPOSITION or CONTIGUITIES. 

2. Conjunctions : Local associations ; Persons ; Uses and Proper- 

ties. Successions: Language ... ... ... ... 152 

COMPOSITION OF SIMILARITIES. 

3. This case sufficiently expressed under the Law of Similarity ... 154 

MIXED CONTIGUITY AND SIMILARITY. 

4. Great discoveries of similarity remembered partly by contiguity 155 

5. Aid to Similarity by the ^ro^/;««Vf/ of the things desired ... ih. 

6. Mnemonic devices ... ... ... ... ... 156 

THE ELEMENT OF FEELING. 

7. Influence of the Feelings on the trains of thought ... ... «3. 

INFLUENCE OF VOLITION. 

8. The influence of the Will indirect. Modes of its operation ... 157 

OBSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATIONS. 

9. Exemplified in the conflict of the Artistic and the Scientific 

points of view ... ... ... ... ... 159 

ASSOCIATION OF CONTRAST. 

10. Contrast may be analyzed into Relativity, Contiguity, Similarity, 

and the influence of Emotion .. ... ... ... 160 



CHAP. lY. 

CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

1. Processes of Original Creation "... ... ... ... 161 

MECHANICAL CONSTRUCTIVENESS. 

2. IMovpments combined into new groupings. Tlirco conditions 

-^•f the Constructive Process generally ... ... ... 1C2 

VERBAL CONSTRUClIVENEbS. 

3. Learning to Articulate ... ... .. ... ... 103 

4. Construction of Sentences ... ... ... ... 1G4 

5. Higher Combinations of langunge ... ... ... ib. 



CONTENTS. XUl 



FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT. Paqh. 

6. Constructing new muscular ideas. Hitting a mark. Archi- 
tectural fitness ... .. ... ... ... 165 

CONSTHUCTIVENESS IN THE SENSATIONS. 

7- Organic Life ; unknown forms of pleasure and pain. The higher 

senses. Visual constructiveness ... ... ... 166 

CONSIRUCTION OF NEW EMOTIONS. 

8. The Simpler Emotions must be experienced. Change of degree. 

Transfer to new objects ... ... ... ... 168 

CONCRETING THE ABSTRACT. 

9. Construction, from abstract elements, of images in the Concrete 169 

REALIZING OF REPRESENTATION OR DESCRIPTION. 

10. Verbal descriptions, or other Eepresentations, realized ... ib. 

CONSTRUCTIVENESS IN SCIENCE. 

11. Definitions, Inductions, Deductions, and Experimental dis- 

coveries involve constructiveness ... ... ... 170 

PRACTICAL CONSTRUCTIONS. 

12. Mechanical Invention. Administrative contrivances. Judg- 

ment; adapting one's views to others. Oratory ... ... 171 

CONSTRUCTIVENESS UNDER PEELING. 

13. Certain constructions satisfy some present emotion : — Emotional 

character appears in literary composition. Bias. The Myth 1/2 

14. Fine Art constructions adapted to Esthetic feelings ... ... 173 

15. Imagination best exemplified under Fine Art constructiveness. 

Its elements are, (1) Concreteness, (2) Originality, (3; the pre- 
sence of Emotion. Fancy. Ideality ... ... ... 174 



CHAP. Y. 
ABSTEACTION~THE ABSTRACT IDEA. 

NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

1. First stage of Abstraction to compare, identify, and classify ... 176 

2. Abstraction means attending to points of agreement and neglect- 

ing points of difference. Question how far this mental sepa- 
ration is possible ... ... ... ... ... ib, 

3. In one view, to abstract is to refer to a class ... ... 177 

4. Cases where we seem to form a pure abstraction : — (1) Material 

separation; (2) Lineal Diagrams ; (3) Verbal Definition . ]78 

5. The only generality, having separate existence, is the Name .. 179 

6. Realism and Conceptualism ... ... ... .. 180 

7. Natural tendency to ascribe separate existence to abstractions ih. 



XIV CONTENTS. 



CHAP. VI. 
THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

EXPERIENCE AND INTUITION. Pav^B. 

1. Question as to the existence of Intuitive or Innate truths .. 181 

2. Importance attached to the Intuitive origin of knowledge ... ib. 

3. Characters ascribed to Innate principles — Necessity and Uni- 

versality ... ... ... ... ... ... 182 

4. Objection to the doctrine of Intuition — it presumes on the finality 

of some one Analysis of the mind ... ... ... ib. 

5. Innate ideas improbable ... ... ... ... ... 184 

6. Innate general ideas would require innate particulars ... ib. 

7. The character of Necessity has nothing to do with Innate origin • id. 

8. Concessions of the supporters of Innate principles ... ... 186 

9. The controversy turns at present on the Axioms of Mathematics 

and the Law of Causation .. ... ... ... ib. 

Criterion of the * inconceivability of the opposites' ... ... ib. 



CHAP. yii. 

OF EXTERNAL PERCEPTION. 

1. Two separate questions : — the Theory of Vision, and the Percep- 

tion of the External and Material World ... ...188 

theory oe vision. 

2. Two views of our Perception of Distance by si^ht ... .. ib. 

3. The native sensibility of the eye includes (1) Light and Colour, 

(2) Visible Figure and Visible Magnitude ... ... 180 

4. The visible signs of variation of Distance from the eye ... ib. 

5. The import of Distance is something beyond the ocular sensations 1 90 
G. Experience associates the visible signs of Distance with the 

movements that give the meaning of Distance ... ... 191 

7. Distance an inference. Experiments of Wheatstone ... ib. 

8. The perception of Distance illustrated by the Stereoscope ... 192 

9. Admission by Berkeley's opponents that the instinctive percep- 

tion is «!/^e^ by associations ... ... ... ... 193 

10. Objection to the theory of Acquired Perception, that we are not 

conscious of tactual or locomotive reminiscences ... ... 194 

11. Farther objection that the early experience of children is insuffi- 

cient to form the supposed associations ... ... ... ib. 

12. Observations on persons born blind and made to see ... ... 19o 

13. Instinctive Perceptions of the Lower Animals .,. ... ib. 

14. Observations on infants ... ... ... ... ... 19() 

15. Hypothesis oi hereditary transmission of the perception ... 197 

perception of a material world. 

1. All Perception or Knowledge implies mind ... ib 

2. The Perception of Matter a distinct attitude of the consciousness 198 

3. The common view of material perception self-contradictory ... ib. 



CONTENTS. XV 

Page. 

4. Analysis of Perception ; I. — The putting forth of Muscular 

Energy, as opposed to Passive Feeling ... ... ... 198 

5. II. — Uniform, connexion of Definite Feelings with Definite 

Energies ... . ... ... ... ... 199 

6. Our own body is a part of our Object experience ... ... 200 

7. III. — Object— the common to all; Subject — the special to each 201 

8. Giving separate existence to the Object a species of Kealism ... 202 

THEORIES OF THE MATERIAL WORLD. 

Berkeley. Classification of the objects of knowledge : — (1) 
Jdeas imprinted on the senses; (2) Ideas of passions of the 
mind; (3) Ideas of memory and imagination. Peculiarity 
of using Idea for Sensation. The first class exist in a mind, no 
less than the others. The vulgar opinion a contradiction. 
Distinction of Primary and Secondary Qualities of no avail. 
Supposed substratum — matter. The reality of things not 
abolished. ASl^^V^Y is something apart from ideas ... ... ib, 

Hume. Summary of his philosophical doctrines generally. The 
popular belief is that the images on the senses are the external 
objects. Philosophy teaches that nothing can be present to 
the mind but a perception. The dispute is one as to fact. By 
Perception we cannot know either continued or distinct exis- 
tence. We attain these . by the mind's tendency to go on, 
even where objects fail. We have no idea of substance. 
There is no such thing as self in the abstract. Mind is a 
bundle of conceptions ... ... ... ... ... 205 

Reid. Reclaimed against Idealism on the ground of Common 
Sense. His statements confused and contradictory ; some 
point to mediate perception, others to immediate perception. 
According to J. S. Mill, his leaning was to the first ... 207 

Stevvakt substantially at one with Reid. Brown ... ... 208 

Hamilton. Classifies the Theories of Perception. His own 
called Natural Realism, or Immediate Perception. Involves 
a self-contradiction. His so-called ultimate analysis involves 
complex notions ... ... ... .. ... ib. 

Ferrier. His fundamental position. He iterates the essential 
implication of Object and Subject. Exposes the self-contra- 
dictions of the prevailing views. Regards Perception as an 

- ultimate fact ... ... ... ,.. ... ^10 

Mansel. Criticism of Berkeley. Analysis of Perception ... 211 

Bailey. Makes ' Perception a simple, indivisible, ultimate 
fact ... ... ... .. ... ... 212 

J. S. Mill. Advances a Psychological Theory of the Belief in 
a Material World. Postulates (1) Expectation, and (2) the 
Laws of Association. Substance, Matter, or the External 
World, is a Fermanent Fossihility of sensation. Distinction 
of Primary and Secondary Qualities. Application to the per- 
manence of Mind .,. ... ,.. .... ... sSi 



XVI COIS TENTS. 

BOOK III. 

THE EMOTIONIS. 

.CHAP. I. 
FEELING IN GENERAL. 

I»A3K. 

L The Soecial Emotions are secondary and derived, and involve 

the Intellect ... ... ... ... ... .•■ 215 

2. Feelins: in general defined ... ... ... ••• ^^• 

3. Twofold aspect of Feeling— Physical and Mental ... ... 216 

4. Physical aspect of Relativity ... ... ... ... i^. 

0. Law of Diffusion ... ... ... ... ••• *^- 

CHARACTERS OF FEELING. 

6. The Characters of Feeling fall under four classes .•• ... 217 

Emotional Characters of Feeling. 

7. Every feeling has its characteristic Physical side ... ... i^. 

8. Mental side : Quality (Pleasure and Pain), Degree, Speciality ib. 

Volitional characters of Feeling, 

9. The voluntary actions a clue to the Feelings ... ... 218 

Intellectual characters of Feeling. 

10. The Ideal persistence of feelings extends their sphere ... *^' 

Mixed characters of Feeling. 

11. Will combined with Ideal persistence makes Forethought ... 219 

12. Desire ... ... ... ... ^ ... ... «^- 

13. It is the property of every feeling to occupy the mind ... ib. 

14. The influence in Belief is a mixed character ... ..• 220 

THE INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELING. 

15. (1) The Expression indicates the feelings of others^ ... ..221 

16. (2) The Conduct pursued indicates pleasure and pain ... ... ib. 

17. (3) The Course of the Thoughts bears the impress of the Feelings 222 

18. The influence of Belief a test of strength of feeling ... ... ib, 

19. The several indications mutually check each other ... ... ib. 

20. Each person may describe their own feelings : Some standard or 

common measure must be agreed upon ... ... ... 223 

21. The criteria of feeling applied to estimate happiness and misery ib. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF FEELING. 

22. An outburst of feeling passes through a certain course ... 224 

23. Alternation and periodicity of emotional states ... ... ib.^ 

24. Ends to bo served by the analysis of the Feelings ... ... 225 



CONTENTS. XVll 

CHAR IT. 

THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 

Page. 

1. The Emotions are secondary, derived, or compound feelings ... 226 

2. Plurality of Sensations, in mutual harmonj^, or in mutual 

conflict ... .. ... ... ... ... ih. 

3. Transfer of feelings to new objects ... ... ... ib, 

4. Coalescence of separate feelings into an aggregate or whole ib. 

5. Principle of classifying the Emotions ... ... ... ib. 

6. Detailed Classification ... ... ... ... ... 227 

CHAP. IIL 

EMOTIONS OF EELATIYITY: NOVELTY.— WONDER.— 

LIBERTY. 

1. Objects of Novelty. Physical circumstance ... .-..229 

2. Mental characters ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

3. Pain of Monotony. Species of Novelty ... .. ... ib, 

4. Variety, a minor form of Novelty ... ... ... 230 

5. Surprise ; includes an element of Conflict ... ... ... ib. 

6. Wonder. Its relation to the Sublime ... ,.. ... 231 

7. Restraint and Liberty, referable to Conflict and Relativity ib. 

8. Liberty the correlative of Restraint -.. ... ... ib. 



CHAP. IV. 
EMOTION OF TERROR. 

1. Terror defined — The apprehension of coming evil ... ,.. 232 

2. Physical side, a loss and a transfer of nervous energy ... ib, 

3. Mentally, Terror is a form of massive pain ... ... 234 

4. Species of Terror. (1) The case of the lower animals. (2) 

Fear in children. (3) Slavish Terror. (4) Forebodings of 

disaster generallj\ (5) Superstition. (6) Distrust of our 

Faculties in new operations. (7) Fear of Death ... 235 

5. Counteractives of Terror : the sources of Courage ... ... 238 

6. Re-action from Terror cheering and hilarious ... ... ib. 

7. Uses of Terror, in Government, and in Education ... ... ib, 

8. The employment of Fear in Fine Art must be qualified „. ib. 



CHAP. Y. ' 
TENDER EMOTION. 

1, Tenderness. Its Objects are sentient beings. The exciting 

causes include Pleasures and Pains and local stimulants ... 239 

2. The Physica^l side involves (1) Touch, (2) the Lachrymal Or- 

gans, and (3) the movements of the Pharynx ... ... 240 



XVlll CONTENTS. 

Page, 

3. Link of sequence, physical and mental, between the stimulants 

and the manifi stations ... ... ... ... 241 

4. Mental side : — Simple characters of the emotion ... ... 242 

5. Mixed characters : Desire ; Control of the Thoughts ... ib. 

SPECIES OF THE TEKDER EMOTION. 

G. Tenderness is vented mainly on human beings ... ... 243 

The lamily Group. 

7. Mother and Offspring. Paternal relationship ... ... ib. 

8. Kelationship of the Sexes ; grounds of mutual affinity ... 244 

The Benevolent Affections. 

9. The main constituent of Benevolence is Sympathy ... „ ib, 

10. The Pleasures of Benevolence analyzed ... .. ... ib. 

11. Compassion, or Pity ... ... ... ... ... 245 

12. Gratitude founded on Sympathv, and ruled by Justice ... ib. 

13. l^enevolence and Gratitude in the equal relationships ... 246 

14. The spectacle of Generosity stimulates Tenderness ... ... ih. 

15. The Lower Animals are fit subjects of tender feeling ... ib. 

16. Form of Tenderness in connexion with Inanimate things ... ib. 

Sorrow. 

17. Sorrow is pain from the loss of objects of affection; Tender- 

ness a means of consolation ... ... .. ... 247 

18. Social and Moral bearings of Tenderness ... ... ... ib. 

Admiration and Esteem. 

19. Admiration is awakened by excellence ; and is allied to Love ... ib. 

20. Esteem respects the performance of essential Duties ... 248 

Veneration — the Iteligious Seiitiment. 

21. The Keligious Sentiment contains Wonder, Love and Awe. — 

Veneration, Eeverence ... ... ... ... ij). 



CHAP YI. 
EMOTIONS OF SELF. 

1. Self Intended to refer to two allied groups of feelings ... 250 

SELF-(iIUTULATI02T AND SELF-ESTEEM. 

2. The feeling arising from excellent or amiable qualities beheld in 

Keif ... ... . . ... .. ... ih. 

.3. Physical side ... ... ... ... ... .., 251 

4. Mental side:— A mode of Tender Feeling ... ... ... ib, 

5. SrECiFic Forms : Self-complacency, Self-esteem and Self-conceit, 

Self-respect and Pride, Self-pity, Emulation, Envy ... 252 

6. Pains of the Emotion : Humility and Modesty, Humiliation and 

Self-abasement, Self-reproach ... ... ... ... 253 

love of approbation. 

7. Involves, with 6elf-grat\ilation, the workings of Sympathy ... 254 



CONTENTS. XIX 

Page. 

8. Species of the feeling: mere Approbation, Admiration and Praise, 

Flattery and Adulation, Glory, Reputation or Fame, Honour; 

the rules of Polite society ... ... ... ... 255 

9. Pains of Disapprobation ; Kemorse; Shame ... ... ib, 

10. Self-complacency and the Love of Admiration as motives „. 256 



CHAP. YII. 

EMOTION OF POWER. 

1. Depends on a sense of superior might or energy, on comparison ih. 

2. Physical side : an increase of Power ; Laughter ... ... 257 

3. Mental side : an elating or intoxicating pleasure ... ,.. 258 

4. Species : Making a Sensation ; control of Large Operations ; 

Command or Authority ; Wealth ; Persuasion ; Spiritual 
ascendancy ; Knowledge ; love of Influence ; Criticism ; Con- 
tempt and Derision ; Ambition .. ... ... ... 259 

5. Pains of Impotence. Jealousy of Power ... ... ... 260 



CHAP. VIII. 

IRASCIBLE EMOTION. 

1. Arising in pain, and occasioning pleasure in inflicting pain ... ib. 

2. The Objects are persons, the authors of pain or injury ... ib. 

3. Physical manifestations : (1) Excitement ; (2) Activity ; (3) 

Organic effects; (4) Expression or Attitude; (5) Exultation 

of Revenge ... ... .. ... ... .. 261 

4. Mental side : \h.Q pleasure of malevolence ... ... ... ib. 

5. Ingredients of Anger : (1) an effect sought to vent activity ; 

(2) fascination in the sight of suffering ; (3) pleasure of 
power; (4) prevention of farther pain 6^ «>^^«^cm^/^«r ... 262 

6. Species of Anger : manifestations in the Lower Animals ; forms 

in Infancy and Childhood ; Sudden anger ; Deliberate Anger 
— Revenge ; Hatred ; Antipathy ; Warfare ; grades of ofience. 
Pleasure of Malevolence called in question. Righteous Indig- 
nation; Noble Rage ... ... ... ... ... 263 

7. Interest evoked by Sympathy with irascible feeling ... ... 266 

8. Justice involves sympathetic Resentment ... ... ... ib. 

9. Punishment by law gratifies and moderates resentful passion ... 267 

CHAP. IX. 
EMOTIONS OF ACTION— PURSUIT. 

1. The attitude of Pursuit induced on voluntary activity ... ib, 

2. Physical side : (1) intent occupation of the Senses ; (2) harmo- 

nizing Muscular Activity ... ... ... ... 268 

«3. Mental side: (1) interest of an end, heightened by its ap- 
proach ; (2) engrossment in Object regards, remission of Sub- 
ject regards ... ... ... ... ... .,. ib, 

2 



XX CONTENTS. 

Page. 

4. Chance, or Uncertainty, contributes to the engrossment ... 269 

5. The excitement of Pursuit is seen in the Lower Animals ... 270 

6. Field Sports ... ... .. ... ... ... ib. 

7. Contests ... ... ... .. ... ... ih. 

8. The occupations of Industry give scope for Plot-interest ... 271 

9. The Sympathetic Relationships contain Pursuit ... ... ib, 

10. The search after Knowledge ... ... ... ... 272 

11. The position of the Spectator contains the interest of Pursuit ... ib. 

12. The Literature of Plot, or Story ... ... ... ... ib, 

13. Form of pain, the prolongation of the suspense ... ... 273 

14. Pains of activity generally ... ... ... ... t^. 



CHAP. X. 
EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. 

1. Pleasures and pains attending Intellectual operations ... ib, 

2. Feelings in the working of Contiguity ... ... ... 274 

8. Pain of Contradiction or Inconsistency ... ... ... ib, 

4. Pleasure of Similarity, an exhilarating surprise ; relief from an 

intellectual burden ... ... ... ... ,,, ib, 

5. New identities of Science increase the range of intellectual 

comprehension ... ... ... ... ... 27o 

6. Discoveries of Practice gives the pleasure of increased power ... ib. 

7. Illustrative Comparisons remit intellectual toil ... ... 276 



CHAP. XL 
SYMPATHY. 

1. Sympathy is entering into, and acting out, the feelings of others ih, 

2. It supposes (1) our remembered experience, (2) a connexion 

between the Expression of feeling and the Feelings themselves 277 
.3. Sympathy an assumption of the physical displays of feeling, 

followed by the rise of the mental state ... ... ... ib. 

*. Circumstances favouring Sympathy ... ,., ... 278 

5. Completion of Sympathy — vicarious action ... ... 279 

6. Sympathy with pleasure and pain ... ... ... 280 

7. Sympathy supports men's feelings and opinions ... ... ib. 

8. Moulding of men's sentiments and views ... ... ... ib, 

9. Sympathy an indirect source of pleasure to the sympathizer ... 281 

10. Sympath}^ cannot subsist upon extreme self-abnegation ... 282 

11. Knowledge is indispensable to large sympathies ... ... ib. 

12. Imitation closely allied to sympathy. The Imitative aptitudes ib. 



CHAP. XII. 
IDEAL EMOTION. 

1. The persistence of Feeling makes the life in the Ideal ... 283 

2. Ideal Emotion is affected by Organic states ... ... 284 

3. There may be a Temperament for Emotion ... ... ib. 



CONTENTS. ^ XXI 

Page. 

4. Some Constitutions are adapted for Special Emotions ^ .. 285 

5. Mental Agencies: — (1) the presence of some Kindred emotion; 

(2) Intellectual forces ... ... .. ...286 

6. Feeling in the Actual often thwarted by the accompaniments 287 

7. Application of the facts to account for the power of Ideal Emotion 288 

8. Ideal Emotion is connected with Desire ... ... ... 289 



CHAP. XIIL 

ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

1. These are the pleasures aimed at in the Fine Arts ... ... ib. 

2. Distinguishing features of Fine Art pleasures : — (I) Pleasure 

is their end ; (2) Disagreeables are excluded ; (3) the Enjoy- 
ment is not monopolized ... ... .. ... 290 

3. The Eye and the Ear are the assthetic senses ... ... 291 

4. Muscular and Sensual elements may be presented in idea ... ib, 

5. Beauty not one quality, but a Circle of Effects ... ... 292 

6. Emotions of Art in detail: I. --The simple pleasurable sensa- 

tions of the Ear and the Eye ... .. ... .„ ib. 

7. II. — Co-operation of the Intellect with the Senses ... ... 293 

8. III. — The Special Emotions ... ... ... ... ib. 

9 IV. — Harmony a preponderating Element in Art ... ... 294 

10. The pleasures of Sound and their Harmonies : — Music ... ib, 

11. Pleasurable Sensations of Sight, and their Harmonies : — Light 

and Shade ; Colours ; Proportions ; Straight and Curved 

Forms; Symmetry; Visible Movements ... ... 296 

12. Complex Harmonies ... ... ... ... ... 298 

13. Fitness as a source of Beauty : Support; Order ... ... 299 

14. Unity in Diversity .. ... ... ... ... 300 

15. It is a principle in Art, to leave something to Desire ... ib, 

16. The Feeling of Beauty has great latitude ... ... ... ib, 

17. The Sublime : — its definition ; Human energy ; Inanimate 

things ; Support ; Natural agencies ; Space ; Time. Con- 
nexion with Terror ... ... ... ... ... 301 

18. Beauty and Sublimity of Natural Objects ; Human Beauty ... 302 

THEORIES OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 

SoKRATES. Holds the Beautiful and the useful to be the same 304 
Plato. Discusses opposing theories; connects Beauty with 

the theory of Ideas ... ... ... ... ... ib. 

Aristotle. Notices orderly arrangement and a certain size ... 305 
AuGUSTiN. Unity in a comprehensive design ... ... ib, 

Shaftesbuiiy. The Beautiful and the Good both perceived by 

the same internal sense ... ... ... .,, ib. 

Addison. Hutcheson. Diderot ... ... ... ib. 

Pere Buffier. Beauty is the type of each species ... ... ib. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds. Agrees in the main with Buffier ... 306 
Hogarth. Fitness, Variety, Uniformity, Simplicity, Intricacy, 

Magnitude. The line of Beauty and of Grace ... ... ib. 

Burke. Beauty causes an agreeable relaxation of the fibres. 

Smoothness ... ... ... .... ... . . 307 



XXU CONTENTS. 

FAar. 

Alison. Beauty is (1) the production of some Simple Emotion ; 
(2) a peculiar exercise of the Imagination. The sensible 
qualities are not beautiful of themselves, but as the signs of 
associated emotions or affections ... ... ... 308 

Jeffrey. Adopts substantially the theory of Alison ... 312 

DuGALD Stewart. Asserts, against Alison and Jeffrey, the 
intrinsic pleasures of Colour. Explains the Sublime by Height 
and its associations ... ... ... ... ... 313 

EuSKiN. Attributes of Infinity, Unity, Repose, Symmetry, 
Moderation. His asceticism ... ... ... .. 314 

THE LUDICROUS. 

1. The causes of Laughter ... ... ... ... ... 315 

2. Incongruity not always ludicrous ... ... ... ... ib, 

3. The Ludicrous caused by the Degradation of some person or 

interest. Theories of Laughter : Aristotle, Quintilian, Hobbes, 
Campbell, Kant ... ... ... ... ... ib, 

4. The pleasure of degradation referable (I) to the sentiment of 

Power, or (2) to the release from Constraint ... ..•317 



booe: iy. 

THE WILL. 

CHAP. L 
PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 

1. The Primitive Elements— Spontaneity and Self-conservation ... 318 

SPONTANEITY OF MOVEMENT. 

2. Spontaneity illustrated ... ... ... ... ,., ib. 

3. Muscular groups or Regions ... ... .. ... 319 

4. The members commanded separately by the will should have at 

the outset an Isolated spontaneity ... ... ... ib. 

5. Circumstances accounting for the higher degrees of the spon- 

taneous discharge ... ... .. ... ... 320 

LINK OF FEELING OF ACTION— SELF-CONSERVATION. 

6. A link has to be formed between actions and feelings ... 322 

7. Self-conservation has two branches. First, Emotional Expression ib. 

8. Secondly, the concurrence of Activity with Pleasure, and the 

obverse ... ... ... ... ... ... 323 

CHAP. IL 
GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 
I, Conversion of the priori tiye elements into the mature volition ... 325 



CONTENTS. XXUl 

Page. 

2. Process of acquirement stated. The coincidence of a movement 

with a pleasure, at first accidental, is maintained hy the link 
of Self-conservation, and finally associated by Contiguity. 
Exemplified in detail, in the Muscular Feelings and the Sen- 
sations ... ... .. ... ... ... 325 

3. Second stage, the uniting of movements with Intermediate Ends 332 

4. Movements transferred from one connexion to another ... 333 

5. Yolilion made general. The Word of Command .. ... ib, 

6. Imitation ... ... ... ... ... ... 334 

7. Acting on the Wish to move ... ... ... ... 336 

8. Association of movements with the idea of the Effect to be pro- 

duced .., ... ... «., . .•• ... 337 

CHAP. III. 

CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 

1. All voluntary control is through the muscles ... ... 338 

CONTROL OF THE FEELINGS. 

2. The power of the Will confined to the muscular accompaniments 339 

3. The voluntary command of the muscles is adequate to suppress 

the movements under emotion ... ,., ... ... 340 

COMMAND OF THE THOUGHTS. 

4. The medium is the control of Attention ... .., ... 341 

5. The will has power over muscular movements in «^^a ... 342 

6. Command of the thoughts may be acquired ... ... ih. 

7. Enters into Constructive Association ... ... ... 343 

8. Command of the Thoughts a means of controlling the Feelings 344 

9. Power of the Feelings to influence the Thoughts ... ... 345 

CHAP. IV. 

MOTIVES, OR ENDS. 

1. Actual pleasures and pains, as Motives .. ... ... 346 

2. Prospective pleasures and pains. Circumstances of ideal persistence 347 

3. The Means of pleasure and pain: — Money, Bodily Strength, 

Knowledge, Formalities, Virtues ... ... ... 349 

4. The Will biased by Fixed Ideas ... ... ... ... 351 

CHAP. Y. 

THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 

1. Conflict of concurring pleasures and pains ... ... ... 354 

2. Spontaneity may oppose the motives to the Will ... .. ih. 

3. Exhaustion a bar to the influence of Motives ... ... 355 

4. Opposition of two Motives in the Actual ... ... ... ib, 

5. Conflict between the Actual and the Ideal ... ... ... 357 

6. Intermediate Ends in conflict .. ... ... ... 358 

7. The Persistence of Ideas makes the Impassioned Ends ... 869 



XXIV CONTENTS. 

CHAR VI. 

DELIBERATION. —RESOLUTION. —EFFORT. 

Pagr. 

1. Deliberation a voluntary suspense, prompted by the evils of 

hasty action ... ... ... ... ... ... 360 

2. The Deliberative process conforms to the theory of the Will ... 362 

3. Resolution is postponed action ... .,. ... ... 363 

4. A strong motive, with insuificiency in the active organs, makes 

the state called Effort ... ... ... ... 365 

5. Deliberation, Resolution, and Effort, are accidents, and not 

essentials of the will. Herschel on the sense of Effort, not^ ib. 

CHAP. VII. 

DESIRE. 

1. Desire is a motive to act — without the ability ,., ... 366 

2. In Desire, there is a state of conflict .. ... ... ib. 

3. Modes of escape from the unrest of Desire : — Forced quiescence ... 367 

4. Ideal or imaginary action ... ... ... ... ... 368 

5. Provocatives of Desire: — (1) the wants of the system; (2) the 

experience of pleasure ... ... ... ... ... 359 

6. Feelings named from the state of Desire : — Avarice, Ambition, 

Curiosity ... ... ... ... ... ... 370 

7. In Desire, there may be the disturbance of the Fixed Idea ... ib. 

8. Desire not a necessary prelude to volition ... ... ... 371 



CHAP. vni. 

BELIEF. 

1. Belief, while involving the Intellect and the Feelings, is essen- 

tially related to c^cifmV?/, or the Will ... ... ... ib. 

2. We are said to believe what we act upon. Apparent exceptions : 

— (1) action against our beliefs; (2) believing where there is 
no occasion to act ; (3) belief determined by feeling ; (4) belief 
apparently an intellectual process ... ... ... 372 

3. Belief attaches to the pursuit of intermediate ends ... ... 375 

4. The intellectual element is an Association of Means and Ends ... 376 

5. Mental foundations of Belief: — (1) our Activity —Spontaneous 

and Voluntary ; we believe whatever is uncontradicted ... ib. 

6. (2) Intellectual Association is an aid to Belief ... ♦ ... 380 

7. (3) Operation of the Feelinirs in Belief ... ... ... ih. 

8. Belief in the order of the World varies with the three elements 382 

9. Belief is opposed, not by Disbelief, but by Doubt ... ... 384 

10. Hope and Despondency are phases of Belief ... ... ib. 



CONTENTS. XXV 

CHAP. IX. 

THE MORAL HABITS. 

Page. 

1. The Moral Habits are related to Feelings and Volitions •.. 385 

2. The Moral Acquirements follow the laws of Ketentiveness ... id, 

3. Special conditions : — (1) an Initiative, and (2) a Grraduated Ex- 

posure in cases of conflict ... .. ... ... 386 

4. Habits in the control of Sense and Appetite : — Temperance. 

Command of Attention ... ... ... ... ib, 

5. Habits under the Special Emotions : — (1) Emotional suscepti- 

bility on the whole ; (2) the Emotions singly ... ... 387 

6. Habits modifying the Activity, or the Will : — Invigoration, and 

power of Endurance ... .. ... ... ... 390 

7. Control of the Intellectual trains made habitual ... ••• 391 

CHAP. X. 
PRUDENCE.— DUTY.— MORAL INABILITY. 

1. Iniluences on the side of PnuDENCE ... ... ... 392 

2. Influences on the side of Duty ; — Sympathy, coupled with Pru- 

dential motives ... ... ... ... ... 393 

3. Strengthening adjuncts common to Prudence and to Duty ... 395 

4. Moral Inability is the insufficiency of ordinary motives, but 

not of all motives ... ... ... .„ „, id, 

CHAP. XL 

LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

1. The exposition of the "Will has proceeded upon uniformity of 

sequence between motive and action. This uniformity denied 
on various grounds : Sokrates ... ... ... ... 396 

2. The perplexity of the question is owing to the inaptness of the 

words — Freedom and Necessity ... ... ... 398 

3. Meanings of Choice, Deliberation, Self-determination, Moral 

Agency, Responsibility. Responsibility for Belief. Is a man 
the author of his character ? ... ... ... ... 400 

histohy of the fuee-will controversy. 

Plato. Aristotle. The Stoics. The Epicureans. ... 406 

Neo-Platonists : — Plotinus. Justin Martyr. Tertullian, 407 
AuGusTiN. Doctrine of Predestination. Free-will with him 
does not mean independence of motives ... ... 408 

Aquinas. Follows Augustin in the doctrines of original sin, 
irresistible grace and predestination. Modes of meeting the 
difficulties ... ... ... ... ... ... 409 

Calvin. Accepted, in their rigour, the views of Augustin ... 410 
Pelaqius and Akminius ... ... ... ... ib, 

HoBBEs. Voluntary action follows the last Appetite. Deliber- 
ation. Intention or Inclination. Liberty is freedom of com- 
pulsion from within. Nothing begins with itself ••.411 



XXVI CONTENTS. 

Faob. 

Descahtes. We are conscious of Freedom. Liberty is not 
indifference, God's perfection requires pre-determination ... 412 

Locke. Liberty opposed, not to necessity, but to coercion. A 
man is free if his actions follow mental antecedents — pleasures 
and pains. All motives are resolved into uneasiness ... 413 

Spinoza. Free-will inconsistent with the nature of God. Ques- 
tion of evil ... .. ... ... ... ... 414 

Collins. Defends the Necessitarian doctrine ... ... ib. 

Leibnitz. Necessity is hypothetical or absolute. Hypothetical 
necessity does not derogate from liberty. Different kinds of 
Fatalism. Motives are dispositions ... ... ...415 

Samuel Clarke. Asserts that the mind has a self-moving 
faculty ..? ... ... ... ... ... 416 

Jonathan Edwards. Vindicates Philosophical Necessity. 
The will is determined by the strongest motive. Self-deter- 
mination is inconsistent and inconceivable. Liberty of 
Indifference untenable. Every event must have a cause; 
this is contradicted by free-will. Fore-knowledge supposes 
infallible sequence. Morality does not require liberty. 
Necessity does not involve bad consequences ... ..-.417 

Price. Took up Clarke's view of self-motion ... ... 420 

Priestley. Controverted Price. Denied that consciousness is 
in favour of freedom. Reconciled necessity with accounta- 
bility. Permission of evil means appointing it. Actions 
must be ultimately traced to the Deity. Materialism leads to 
necessity ... ... ... ... ... ... 421 

Reid. Liberty defined. Arguments in support of Free-will. 
Refutation of Necessity .. ... ... ... 422 

Hamilton. Defends Free-will on his Law of the Conditioned, 
liberty and Necessity are both inconceivable. Freedom is a 
datum of consciousness, and is involved in duty .. ... 425 

J. S. Mill. Law of Cause and Effect established by Experience. 
The testimony of Consciousness. Accountability. Necessity 
is not Fatalism. Iniauenco of Motives ... „. 426 



CONTENTS. XXVU 



APPENDIX. 

A. — History of I^oininalism and Realism, JPage. 

The controversy on Universals first obtained its place through So- 
krates and Plato, Earliest germs in the doctrines of Parmenides 
and of Heracleitus ... .,. ... ... ... 1 

SoKRATES. His manner of life, and method. Search for the mean- 
ings of universal terms ... ... ... ... ... 3 

Plato. Theory of Ideas (in KratylusJ, Timceus; Distinction of 
the Transient and the Permanent, the one perceived by Sense, the 
other by Intelligence ; the intelligent or cogitable element — the 
Ideas, prior in time and in order. Fh(sdrus : Pre-existence of the 
Ideas. Phcedon : Sense erroneous and can give only Opinion ; it 
is only the Cogitant mind, disengaging itself from the body, that 
attains the contemplation of Universals, the only eternal realities. 
Republic : iteration of the contrast between Sensible Particulars 
and Cogitable Universals; Idea of the Good. Thecetetus : the 
Particulars, although distinct from, yet participate in, the Univer- 
sals, and thus become partially existent and cognizable. In these 

* views is given the first statement of Realism. In the dialogues — 
Sophistes and Farmenides — Plato, in his usual dialectical manner, 
sets forth the objections to the theory of Ideas : these objections 
are no where answered by him ... ... ... ... 4 

Aristotle. Enters his protest against separating Universals from 
Particulars, Advances a series of objections against the Platonic 
Ideas. The Sensible Particular alone has full reality. The Uni- 
versals exist as predicates, or concomitants, of the Particulars. 
The Categories ... ... ... ... ... ... 13 

The Stoics. Their alteration of the Categories ... ... 21 

Plotinus, Falls back upon Platonism. The Cogitables are the 
only realities. The Idea of the Good the highest of all ... 22 

Porphyry. Vindication of the Categories. His doubts as to the 
separate existence of Genera and Species ... ... ... ib. 

ScoTus Erigena. a Christian Platonist with Aristotelian ideas. 
Maintained that reality exists only in the Cogitable or Incorporeal 
Universal. The first start of Scholastic Realism ... ... 23 

Anselm and Roscellin. Debated the question as bearing on the 
Trinity. Rise of designations Nominalist and Realist. Abaelard. 
AauiNAS. Supports the Aristotelian doctrine, with a qualification 
as to the ideas in the Divine Mind. Dtjns Scotus ... ... 24 

OcKHAM. Associated with the downfall of Scholasticism. Uciver- 
sals have no existence but in the mind. Nominalism from his 
time in the ascendant. After Descartes, the question fell into a 
second rank ... ... ... ... ... ... 25 

HoBBES. The most outspoken representative of extreme Nominalism 26 

Locke. General terms the signs of general ideas ... ... 27 

Berkeley. Denies the power of conceiving any property in the ab- 
stract ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 28 

Hume. Abstract ideas are in themselves individual ... ... ih. 

Reid. General names must imply general conceptions. We 
may disjoin, in our conception, attributes inseparable in nature 29 

Stewart. Abstraction as exemplified in Geometry and Algebra ib. 



xxviii CONTENTS. 

Page. 
Browit. a general word designates certain particulars, together 

with the fact of their resemblance ... ... ... ... 30 

Hamilton. Considers both parties misled by the ambiguity of the 

terms. Expresses Nominalism with exactness, but admits a form 

of Conceptuulism ... ... ... --. •.. ... 31 

James Mill. A general term is associated with a multitude of 

particulars ; the idea complex and indistinct, but not unintelligible ib. 
Bailey. The mental conceptions the same for proper names and for 

general names ... ... .. ... ••• ... 32 

B. — The Origin of Knowledge — Experience and Intuition, 

Plato. T\iq doctvinQ oi Beminiscence ... ... ... ... 33 

Aristotle. Did not regard the notions of Cause, Substance, &;c. as 
Intuitions. Common Sense belongs to the region of Opinion, 
and not to Science or Cognition ; and includes the provinces of 
Ehetoric and Dialectic — the matters generally received among men. 
The Topica. The principles of Science : some special to the seve- 
ral sciences ; others common to all sciences — the First Philosophy 
or Ontology. Demonstration must end in principles that are in- 
demonstrable. These highest principles are not intuitive ; they 
are the growth of the higher human faculties ; their truth is as- 
certained by Induction. Eolation to Intellect or Nous. Prin- « 
ciples of the First Philosophy — the Maxim of Contradiction, and 
the Maxim of Excluded Middle. His vindication of those maxims 
consists in an appeal to Induction ... .. , . ... ib. 

The Schoolmen^. Opposing views were held. The question be- 
came prominent at the close of the scholastic period. ... ... 49 

Descartes. First position — Thought implies Existence. The idea 
of Perfection involves a perfect Deity. The veracity of God war- 
rants the Existence of Matter. Mind a thinking substance, Body 
an extended substance. His Deductive system founded on self- 
evident truths. Examples of Intuitions ... ... ... ib. 

Aritauld. Distinguishes between Image and Idea. There are 
simple ideas not arising from Sense ... ... ... 51 

CuDWORTH. Sense and Cognition. Ideas of Cognition. ... 52 

Herbert of Cherbury. What is accepted by all men must be 
true. The Common Xotions are Instinctive. Their characters ih. 

Locke. His replies to the arguments for Innate Ideas : — Argument 
from Universality. That the propositions, as soon as heard, are as- 
sented to. Opposing considerations : — The maxims are not known 
to children ; they appear least in savages, and in the illiterate. 
Examination of some alleged innate ideas ... ... ... 53 

Leibnitz. Charges Locke with overlooking the distinction between 
truths of fact and necessary truths. The Intellect itself is innate. 
Examples of necessary principles. Particular experiences cannot 
impart universality. Themodeof pre-existence of the innate ideas 56 

Kant. His position as between the opposing schools. Maintained 
the existence of a priori or Innate Principles. Examples irom 
INIathematics. The native elements are Forms, experience sup- 
plying the Matter. I. — Forms of Intuition— Space and Time. 
11. — Categories of the Understanding — Unity, Plurality, Univer- 
sality, Reality, Negation, Limitation, Substantiality, Causality, 
. Reciprocal action. Possibility, Existence, Necessity. III. — Ideas 
of the Reason— the Soul, the World, God ... ... ... d8 



CONTENTS. XXIX 

Page. 

BuFFiER. His anticipation of Reid. Defines Comiaaon Sense. 
Enumeration of First Truths ... ... ... ... 62 

Eeid. Common Sense is the judgment of sound minds generally. 
Principles of Contingent Truth. The Principles of Necessary- 
Truth : — Grammar, Logic, Mathematics, Taste, Morals, Meta- 
physics, &c. ... ... ... ... ... ... 63 

Stewart. Theory of Axioms, Definitions, and Mathematical De- 
monstration ... ... ... ... ... ... 65 

Hamilton. Common Sense another name for the final appeal to 
Consciousness. Criteria of the principles of Common Sense. 
Meanings of Necessity. Law of the Conditioned. Applied to 
Causality and to Substance ... ... ... ... 67 

J. S. Mill. The nature of the certainty of mathematical truths. 
Eeply to the arguments in favour of the a priori foundation of the 
mathematical axioms. Discussion of the test of inconceivableness 
of the opposites. Logical basis of Arithmetic and Algebra. Ex- 
amination of Mr. Spencers theory of the axioms ... ... 69 

Mansel. Different kinds of Necessity : — Mathematical necessity : 
the axioms of Geometry ; Arithmetic. Metaphysical Necessity. 
Substance; Causality. Logical Necessity. Moral Necessity ... 73 

C. — On Sappiness, 

Enumeration of primary Pleasures and Pains. Important distinc- 
tions among pleasures and pains. Happiness as affected by the 
principle of Eelativity. Health. Activity, or Occupation. 
Knowledge. Education. Individuality. Wealth. Virtue, 
or Duty. Religion. Formation of a Plan of Life, or Method 78 

D. — Classifications of the Mind, 

The Intellectual Powers. Aquinas. Reid. Stewart. Brown. 

Hamilton, Bailey ... ... ... ... ... 88 

The Emotions. Reid. Stewart. Brown. Hamilton. Spencer. 

Kant. Herbert. Schleidler ... ... ... ... 89 

The Laws of Association. Aristotle. Ludovicus Yives. 

Hobbes. Locke. Hume. Gerard. Beattie. Hartley. James 

Mill. Stewart. Brown. Hamilton ... ... ... 91 

E. — Meanings of Certain Terms, 

Consciousness. — As mental life on the whole. As the subjective 
life more especially. View that Consciousness, as a whole, is 
based on knowing ... ... ... ... ... 93 

Sensation. Expresses various contrasting phenomena ... 94 

Presentation and Representation ... ... ... 95 

Personal Identity. Identity in living beings involves unbroken 
continuity. Two views of Personal Identity : (1) a Persistent 
Substance underlying consciousness ; (2) the Sequence of con- 
scious states. Nature of our belief in Memory ... ... 96 

Substance. Every property of a thing may be called an Attribute, 
and the question arises what is the Substance ? Two alter- 
natives : — (1) an unknowable substratum ; (2) the reservation of 
the fundamental or essential property, as the Substance. Substance 
of Matter : of Mind. The total of any concrete may be held as 
the subject of the various individual attributes. The questions of 
Substance and Personal Identity in great part the same ,.. 98 



INTRODUCTION. 



CHAPTER L 

DEFINITION AND DIVISIONS OF MIND. 

1. Human Knowledge, Experience, or Consciousness, 
falls under two great departments ; popularly, they are 
called Matter and Mind ; philosophers, farther, employ the 
terms External World and Internal World, Not-Self or 
Non-Ego and Self or Ego ; but the names Object and Sub- 
ject are to be preferred. 

The experience or consciousness of a tree, a river, a con- 
stellation, illustrates what is meant by Object. The expe- 
rience of a pleasure, a pain, a volition, a thought, comes under 
the head of Subject. 

There is nothing that we can know, or conceive of, but is 
included under one or other of these two great departments. 
They comprehend the entire universe a-s ascertainable by us. 

2. The department of the Object, or Object- World, is 
exactly circumscribed by one property, Extension. The 
world of Subject'-^experience is devoid of this property. 

A tree or a river is said to possess extended magnitude. 
A pleasure has no length, breadth, or thickness ; it is in no 
respect an extended thing. A thought or idea may refer to ex- 
tended magnitudes, but it cannot be said to have extension in 
itself. Neither can we say that an act of the will, a desire, a 
belief, occupy dimensions in space. Hence all that comes within 
the sphere of the Subject is spoken of as the Unextended. 

3. Thus, if Mind, as commonly happens, is put for the 



A DEFINITION AND DIVISIONS OF MIND. 

sum total of Subject-experiences, we may define it nega- 
tively by a single fact — the absence of Extension. Bat, as 
Object-experience is also in a sense mental, the only ac- 
count of Mind strictly admissible in scientific Psychology 
consists in specifying three properties or functions — Feel- 
ing, Will or Volition, and Thought or Intellect — through 
wliich all our experience, as well Objective as Subjective, 
is built up. This positive enumeration is what must stand 
for a definition. 

Feeling includes all our pleasures and pains, and certain 
modes of excitement, or of consciousness simply, that are 
neutral or indifferent as regards pleasure and pain. The 
pleasures of warmth, food, music ; the pains of fatigue, 
poverty, remorse ; the excitement of hurry and surprise, the 
supporting of a light weight, the touch of a table, the sound of 
a dog barking in the distance — are Feelings. The two lead- 
ing divisions of the feelings are commonly given as Sensations 
and Emotions. 

Will or Volition comprises all the actions of human beings 
in so far as impelled or guided by Feelings. Eating, walking, 
building, sowing, speaking — are actions performed with some 
end in view ; and ends are comprised in ^ the gaining of plea- 
sure or the avoiding of pain. Actions not prompted by feel- 
ings are not voluntary. Such are the powers of nature — wind, 
gravity, electricity, &c.; so also the^organic functions of breath- 
ing, circulation, and the movements of the intestines. 

Thought, Intellect, Intelligence or Cognition includes the 
powers known as * Perception, Memory, Conception, Abstrac- 
tion, Reason, Judgment, and Imagination. It is analj^zed, as 
will be seen, into three functions, called Discrimination or 
Consciousness of Difference, Similarity or Consciousness of 
Agreement, and Retentiveness or Memory. 

The mind can seldom operate exclusively in any one of 
these three modes. A Feeling is apt to be accompanied more 
or less by Will and by Thought. When we are pleased, 
our will is moved for continuance or increase of the pleasure 
(Will) ; we at the same time discriminate and identify the 
pleasure, and have it impressed on the memory (Thought), 
(Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 1S8.) 

Thus the Definition is also a Division of the Mind ; that 
is, a classification of its leading or fundamental attributes. 

We may advert to some of the previous modes of defining and 



CLASSIFICATIONS OF MIND. 3 

dividing the Mind. Reid says, * By the mind of a man, we under- 
stand that in him which thinks, remembers, reasons, wills : ' a 
definition by means of a division at once defective and redundant ; 
the defect lies in the absence of FeeKng; the redundancy in the 
addition of 'remember' and 'reason' to the comprehensive word 
'think.' 

Eeid's formal classification in expounding the mind is into 
Intellectual Powers and Active Powers, The submerged depart- 
ment of Feeling will be found partly mixed up with the Intellectual 
Powers, wherein are included the Senses and the Emotions of 
Taste, and partly treated of among the Active Powers, which com- 
prise the exposition of the benevolent and the malevolent affections. 

Dr. Thomas Brown, displeased with the mode of applying the 
term 'Active' in the above division, went into the other extreme, 
and brought forward a classification where Feeling seems entirely 
to overlie the region of Volition. He divides mental states into 
external affections and internal affections. By external affections he 
means the feelings we have by theSenses, in other words Sensa- 
tion. The internal affections he subdivides into intellectual states 
of mind and emotions. His division, therefore, is tantamount to 
Sensation, Emotion, and Intellect. All the phenomena commonly 
recognized as of an active or volitional character he classes as a 
part of Emotion. 

Sir William Hamilton, in remarking on the arrangement 
followed in the writings of Professor Dugald Stewart, states his 
own view as follows :• — ' If we take the Mental to the exclusion of 
Material phoenomena, that is, the phcenomena manifested through 
the medium of Self -consciousness or Eeflection, they naturally 
divide themselves into three categories or primary genera; — 11 e 
phoenomena of Knoivledge or Cognition, — the phoenomena of Feeittaj 
or of Pleasure and Pain^ — and the phoenomena of Conation or of 
Will and Desire,' Intelligence, Feeling, and Will are thus distinc- 
tively set forth. 

4. It is not practicable to discuss the powers of the 
mind in the exact order of the three leading attributes. 

Feeling and Volition each involve certain primary ele- 
ments, and also certain secondary or complex elements due to 
the operation of the Intellect upon the primary. For example, 
Sensation is a primary department of feeling, and always 
precedes the Intellect ; while the Emotions, which are se- 
condary and derived, follow the exposition of the Intellectual 
powers. The Will is to a great extent the product of the Reten- 
tive function of Intelligence ; it is also dependent throughout 
on the Feelings ; hence it is placed last in the course of the 
exposition; only, at an early stage, some notice is taken of its 
primary constituents. 



4 DEFINITION AND DIVISIONS OF MIND. 

The arrangement is as follows : — ■ 

First, Feeling and Yolition in the germ, together with the 
full detail of Sensation, which contains a department of Feel- 
ing, and exemplifies one of the Intellectual functions — Dis- 
crimination. The convenient title is Movement, Sense and 
Instinct. 

Secondly, The Intellect. 

Thirdly, The Emotions, completing the department of 
Feeling. 

Fourthly, The Will. 

5. Although Subject and Object (Mind and Matter) are 
the most widely opposed facts of our experience, yet there 
is, in nature, a concomitance or connexion between Mind 
and a definite Material organism for every individual. 

The nature and extent of this connexion will appear as 
we proceed ; and, afterwards, the phraseology of the proposi- 
tion will be rendered more exact. Each mind is known, by 
direct or immediate knowledge, only to itself. Other minds 
are known to us solely through the material organism. 

The physical organs related to the mental processes are : — 
I. The Brain and ]N'erves ; 11. The Organs of Movement, or 
the Muscles ; III. The Organs of Sense ; IV. The Yiscera, 
including the Alimentary Canal, the Lungs, the Heart, &c. 
The greatest intimacy of relationship is with the Brain and 
I^erves. 

It has always been a matter of difficulty to express tbe nature 
of this concomitance, and hence a certain mystery has attached to 
the union of mind and body. The difficulty is owing- to the fact 
that we are apt to insist on some kind of local or space relationship 
between the Extended and the Unext ended. \Vhen we think of 
connexion, it is almost always of connexion in space ; as in sup- 
posing one thing placed in the interior of another. This last 
figure is often applied to the present case. Mind is said to be in- 
ternal to, or within, the body. Descartes localized mind in the 
pineal gland ; the schoolmen debated whether the mind is all in 
the whole body, or all in every part. Such expressions are un- 
suitable to the case. The connexion is one of dependence^ but not 
properly of local union. 



CHAPTEK IL 

THE KERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 

(^Summary of Results.) 

1. The Brain is the principal, althougli not the sole, 
organ of mind ; and its leading functions are mental. 

The proofs of this position are these : — 

(1) The physical pain of excessive mental excitement is 
localized in the head. In extreme muscular fatigue, pain is 
felt in the muscles ; irritation of the lungs is referred to the 
chest, indigestion to the stomach; and when mental exercise 
brings on acute irritation, the local seat is the head. 

(2) Injury or disease of the brain affects the mental 
powers. A blow on the head destroys consciousness ; physical 
alterations of the nervous substance (as seen after death) are 
connected with loss of speech, loss of memory, insanity, or 
some other mental deprivation or derangement. 

(3) The products of nervous waste are more abundant 
after mental excitement. These products, eliminated mainly 
by the kidneys, are the alkaline phosphates, combined in the 
triple phosphate of ammonia and magnesia. Phosphorus is 
a characteristic ingredient of the nervous substance. 

(4) There is a general connexion between size of brain 
and mental energy. In the animal series, intelligence increases 
with the development of the brain. The human brain greatly 
exceeds the animal brain; and the most advanced races of 
men have the largest brains. Men distinguished for mental 
force have, as a general rule, brains of an unusaal size. The 
average weight of the brain is 48 oz. ; the brain of Cuvier 
weighed 64 oz. Idiots commonly have small brains. 

(5) By specific experiments on the brain and nerves, it is 
shown that they are indispensable to the mental functions. 

2. The Nervous System, as a whole, is composed of 
a central mass, or lump, and a system of branching or 
ramifying threads, designated the nerves. 



6 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 

The central mass, or lump, is called the cerebro- spinal 
axis, or centre, because contained in the head and backbone, 
being a large roundish lump (in the head), united to a slender 
column or rod (in the spine). 

The nerves are the silvery threads proceeding from the 
central lump, and ramifying to all parts of the body. As 
there is a circle of action between the brain and the bodily 
organs, one-half of the nerves carry influence outwards, the 
other half inwards. 

3. The nervous substance is composed of two elements, 
described as the %oMte matter and the grey matter. 

The white matter is made up of minute fibres. The 
grey matter contains fibres, together with small bodies, 
termed cells^ or corpuscles. 

By slicing through a brain, we may observe the two kinds 
of substance. The interior mass is a pale, waxy white ; the 
circumference shows an irregular cake of ashy grey colour. 

Microscopically viewed, the two elements of the nerve sub- 
stance are (1) fibres, and (2) little bodies called cells or 
corjouscles. The white matter is made up of fibres ; the grey 
matter contains cells intermingled with fibres. 

One remarkable peculiarity of the nerve fibres is their ex- 
ceeding minuteness. Their thickness ranges from the 

an inch. In a rod of nervous matter, an inch thick, there 
might be, from ten to one hundred millions of fibres. Such 
nainuteness and corresponding multiplication of fibres must 
be viewed with reference to the variety and complicacy of the 
mental functions. 

A second fact is their position. This is always a completed 
connexion between the extremities of the body and the cells 
of the grey matter, or else between one cell and another of the 
central lump ; there are no loose ends. The fibres are thus a 
connecting or conducting material. 

The cells or corpuscles are rounded, pear shaped, or irregular 
little bodies, and give origin each to two or more fibres. They 
are on a corresponding scale of minuteness. They range as high 
as the g^oth of an inch, and as low as the ty.^oo^^- ^ little 
cube of grey matter, a quarter of an inch in the side, might 
contain one hundred thousand cells. 

These corpuscles are richly supplied with blood (so are the 
nerve fibres), and are supposed to be Centres of nervous 
energy or influence, or, at all events, parts where the nervous 



FUNCTIONS OF THE SPINAL COKD. 7 

energy is re-inforced. Hence the masses of grey matter are 
spoken of as constituting the Nerve Centres. 

A second function attaching to the corpuscles supplies a key 
to the plan of the brain. They are Grand Junctions or Crossings, 
where the fibres extend and multiply their connexions. The 
fibres coming from all parts of the body, enter sooner or later 
into the corpuscles of the grey substance, and, through these, 
establish forward and lateral communications with other 
fibres, which communications are required for grouping and 
co-ordinating sensations and movements in the exercise of our 
mental functions, 

4. The Central nervous mass, or Cerebro-Spinal Axis, 
is composed of parts, which may be separately viewed, and 
to which belong separate functions. 

I. The Spinal Cord is the rod or column of nervous sub- 
stance enclosed in the back-bone. It is chiefly made up of 
white matter, but contains a core of grey substance. 

The Spinal Cord is supposed to terminate at the edge of 
the hole in the skull where the column enters to join the brain. 
At this point, it is expanded both in width and in depth, and 
receives additions of grey matter. The expanded portion, 
about IJ inch in length, is called the medulla ohlongata^ and 
is a body of great importance, being the centre of important 
nerves. 

The functions of the Spinal Cord are known to be these — 

First, It is the main Trunk of all the nerves distributed to 
the body generally (the head excepted). Its destruction or 
severance at any part puts an end to all communication with 
the members supplied with nerves belqw the point of sever- 
ance ; whence follow paralysis and loss of feeling. 

Secondly, It has the functions of a Centre ; in other words, 
it completes a circle of nervous action, so that certain move- 
ments, in answer to stimulants, can be kept up by means of it 
alone. This property is allied with the inside core of grey 
matter. A decapitated frog will draw up and throw out its 
limbs when the skin is pinched or irritated. 

Taking together the Spinal Cord and the Medulla Oblongata, 
we find that by their means a certain class of living actions 
'are maintained, called automatic^ and also reflex actions. These 
are involuntary actions ; they are maintained without any 
feeling, intention, or volition, on our part. They are enu- 
merated as follows : — 

(1) Movements connected with the process of Digestion, 



8 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 

The first operation upon the food in the mouth — the chewing 
or masticating — is voluntary, and requires the co-operation of 
the brain. When the morsel passes from the tongue into the 
bag of the throat, it is forced down the gullet by a series of 
contractions and movements which are involuntary ; we have 
no feeling of them, and no control over them. The contact of 
the food with the surface of the alimentary tube impresses 
certain nerves distributed there ; influence is conveyed to a 
nervous centre (in some part below the brain, probably the 
medulla oblongata, together with the sympathetic ganglia), 
and the response is manifested in the contracting of the mus- 
cular fibres of the alimentary tube. 

(2) The movements connected with Mespiration. The 
breathing action is sustained by a power withdrawn from our 
will, although voluntary muscles are made use of. In taking 
in breath, the lungs are expanded by the muscles of the chest ; 
in expiration, the chest is compressed, and the air forced 
out, by the abdominal muscles. The medulla oblongata is the 
centre for sustaining this process. 

The acts of coughing and sneezing are reflex acts, operated 
through the lungs. The irritation of the very sensitive sur- 
faces of the throat and bronchial tubes, and of the lining 
membrane of the nose, originates, through the medulla ob- 
longata, a powerful discharge of nervous force to the expira- 
tory muscles, and the air is forced out with explosive violence. 
Sucking in infants is a purely reflex act. 

(3) Certain reflex movements are connected with, the 
Eyes, The act of winJdng is stimulated by the contact of the 
eye with the inner surface of the upper eyelid, and serves to 
distribute the tears, or eye-wash, and clean the ball. There is 
also a reflex action of the light in opening and closing the 
pupil of the eye. 

(4) There is a tendency, of a purely reflex nature, to 
move the muscles of any part, by a stimulus specially applied 
to that part. In the decapitated frog, the pinching of a foot 
leads to the retractation of that foot. An object placed in the 
open hand of any one asleep, stimulates the closure of the hand. 
Touching the cheek of a child makes it laugh. In tasting any- 
thing, the sensation, while awakening a general expression of 
feeling, more especially excites the muscles of the mouth. The 
same applies to smell ; a bad odour produces a contortion of 
the nose. In these effects of the more special senses, the in- 
fluence may not be limited to the spinal cord, but it illustrates 
the kind of reflex action referred to, an action which the cord 



FUNCTIONS OF THE CEREBKUM. 9 

is capable of sustaining. This whole class has sometimes been 
called sensori-motor actions. 

(5) The effect denominated the tension, tone, or tonicity 
of the muscles. It is a fact, that in the profoundest slumber 
there is still a certain degree of contraction in the muscles ; 
only after death are they wholly relaxed. Now, experi- 
ments seem to show that this remaining contraction is 
maintained through the agency of the spinal cord ; it disap- 
pears with the destruction of the cord. 

II. The Brain, or Encephalon, is the rounded or oval lump 
of nervous matter filling the cavity of the skull. It is a com- 
plex mass, but there are certain recognized divisions, with 
probable difference of function. 

Commencing from below, and continuous with the Spinal 
cord, is the Medulla Ohlongata, which has been already noticed. 

Next is the Pons Varolii^ or ring-like protuberance, so 
called because it embraces like a ring the main stem of the 
brain, continued upwards from the medulla oblongata. It 
contains white, or fibrous matter, running partly up and down, 
and partly in a transverse direction, with difiused grey mat- 
ter. As regards the white portion, it serves as a track of 
communication from below upwards, and from one half of the 
cerebellum (which adjoins it) to the other half. As regards 
the grey matter, it must perform some of the functions of a 
centre, in reflecting and multiplying nervous communications. 
No more special explanation can be given of its functions. 

The Cerebral Hemispheres^ sometimes called the brain pro- 
per, constitute the highest and by far the largest part of the 
human brain. This mass is egg-shaped, but with a flattened 
base ; the big end of the egg being behind. There is a com- 
plete division into two halves, right and left, by a deep fissure 
all round, leaving only a connecting band of white matter. 
The surface is not plain, but moulded into numerous smooth 
and tortuous eminences, called convolutions, which are sepa- 
rated by furrows of considerable, though variable depth. The 
convoluted surface consists of a cake of grey matter, some- 
what less than half an inch thick, and very much extended by 
the convoluted arrangement. Inside of this cake, the hemi- 
spheres are made up of white matter, with the exception of 
certain small enclosed masses, which contain considerable por- 
tions of grey matter. 

These last-named bodies, called the lesser grey centres of the 
brain, are regarded as the medium of connexion between the 
hemispheres above, and the great stem below. Probably in 



10 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 

them occurs that multiplication of fibres, necessary to the 
enormous expansion of the white matter of the hemispheres. 
Two of these bodies are usually named together, the corpora 
striata and tlialami ojotici, as being closely conjoined in the 
heart of the white substance of the hemispheres ; through 
them most of the ascending fibres of the main stem spread out 
into the hemispheres. They contain a large amount of grey 
matter. A third mass, the corpora quadrigemina, or quadruple 
bodies, is more detached, and lies behind, between the cere- 
brum and the cerebellum. This centre is closely connected 
with the optic nerve, and has important functions relating to 
vision. In the lower vertebrata (as fishes), it assumes very 
large proportions as compared with the rest of the brain. 
Resting on the middle cleft of the four eminences, is a small 
conical body, called the pineal gland, curious as being sup- 
posed, by Descartes, to be the seat of the soul. 

The functions of the Hemispheres of the Brain, including 
the enclosed Ganglia, comprehend all, or nearly all, that is 
comprised in mind. When they are destroyed, or seriously 
injured, sensation, emotion, volition, and intelligence are sus- 
pended. Movements are still possible, but there is no evidence 
that they are accompanied with consciousness, in other words, 
with feeling and intelligence ; they are without purpose, or 
volition. 

It would be interesting, if we could assign distinct mental 
functions to different parts of this large and complicated organ; 
if we could find certain convolutions related to specific feelings, 
or to specific intellectual gifts and acquirements. This Phren- 
ology attempted, but with doubtful success. Yet, it is most 
reasonable to suppose that, the brain being constituted on a 
uniform plan, the same parts serve the same functions in 
different individuals. 

The Cerebellum, Utile hrain, or after-hrainy lies behind and 
beneath the convoluted hemispheres. It is a nearly wedge- 
shaped body, divided into two halves, with, connecting white 
matter. Like the hemispheres, its outer surface is a thin cake 
of grey matter, extended, not by the convoluted arrangement, 
but by being folded into plates or laminae. The connexions 
of the cerebellum are, beneath, with a detached branch of the 
great stem, and above with the hemispheres, through the 
corpora quadrigemina ; the two halves are united laterally by 
the pons varolii. 

The functions of the Cerebellum are still under discussion. 
Certain experiments, made by Flourens, were interpreted as 



FUNCTIONS OF THE CEREBELLUM. 11 

showing that it is the centre of rhythmical and combined 
movements, such as the locomotive movements — walking, 
flying, swimming, &c. Its destruction in pigeons took away 
the power of standing, flying, walking, leaping, without 
seeming to destroy the cardinal functions of the mind, the 
powers of sensation and volition. The inference has been 
denied by Brown-Sequard, who affirms that the same inability 
of guiding and combining the movements follows the destruc- 
tion or irritation of other parts of the base of the brain. The 
two sets of observations are not inconsistent ; for, as the ner- 
vous action has to traverse a certain course or circuit, it may 
be suspended by destroying any part of the line. What seems 
to be established by the observations is, that there is a separate 
locality concerned in joining movements into harmonious or 
combined groups for executing the voluntary determinations. 



THE NERVES. 

5. The nerves are the branching or ramifying cords, pro- 
ceeding from the centres, and distributed to all parts of the 
body. 

They have been locally divided into spinal and cerebral^ 
according as they emerge from the Spinal Cord, or directly 
from the Brain. This is chiefly a matter of local convenience ; 
those nerves supplying the head and face, emerge at once 
from the brain, through openings in the skull ; the rest de- 
scend in the spinal cord, and are given off', ^^^ openings be- 
tween the vertebrae, higher or lower, according to their ulti- 
mate destination. 

The mode of emergence from the spinal cord is peculiar. 
At the interstices of the vertebraa, a couple of branches 
emerge, for the two sides of the body. Each member of the 
couple is composed of two portions, or roots, an anterior and 
a posterior root, which at a little distance unite in a common 
stem. It is observed, however, that the posterior root has a 
little swelling or ganglion, containing grey substance, there 
being nothing to correspond in the anterior root. 

6. The general function of the nerves is to transmit 
influence from one part of the system to another. 

The nerves are supposed to originate nothing ; they are 
exclusively employed in carrying or conveying energy of 



12 THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ITS FUNCTIONS. 

their own kind. In tbe final result, this energy stimulates 
muscles into action, and without it no muscle ever operates. 
But in the circles of thought, a great many nerve currents go 
their rounds, without stimulating muscles. 

7. The circuit of nervous action supposes two classes 
of nerves, the incarrying and the outcarrying. These are 
usually combined in the same trunk nerve. They appear 
in separation, in the double roots of the spinal nerves. 

The nervous influence does not proceed indiscriminately to 
and fro, in the same fibres ; one class is employed for convey- 
ing influence inwards, in sensation, and the other class for con- 
veying influence outwards, in volition. At the emergence of 
the spinal nerves, the classes are distinct. It was the dis- 
covery of Bell, that the posterior roots, distinguished by the 
little ganglionic swellings, are nerves purely of sensation ; the 
anterior roots, nerves purely of movement. It would be a 
point of great interest, if these pure nerves could be traced 
upwards into the nerve centres, so as to show which centres 
received sensory fibres, and which motory ; this would be the 
first clue to a genuine Phrenology. 

The Cerebral Serves are nearly all pure nerves. They 
were formerly divided into nine pau'S, but there are, in reality, 
twelve pairs. 

The first pair is the olfactory, or nerve of Smell. The second 
is the optic, or nerve of Sight. The third, fourth, and sixth pairs 
are distributed to the muscles of the eye, and therefore determine 
its movements. The fifth pair is double, containing a motor 
branch to the muscles of the jaws, and a sensory branch connected 
with the sensibility of the face, and containing the nerve of Taste. 
The seventh pair is motor, and supphes the muscles of the face. 
The eighth is the nerve of Hearing. The ninth supplies sensory 
fibres to the tongue and throat (being a second nerve of Taste), 
and motor fibres to the muscles of the throat or pharynx. The 
tenth, called pneuvio-gastric, supplies the larjaix, the lungs, the 
liver, and the stomach, and is the medium of a large amount of 
sensibility. The eleventh, called spinal accessory, is motor. The 
twelfth pair (hypo-glossal) is the motor nerve of the tongue. 



BOOK I. 

MOVEMENT, SENSE, AND INSTINCT. 



CHAPTEE I. 

MOVEMENT, AND THE MIJSCULAE PEELINGS. 

1. The Muscular Feeling's a"vee with the sensations of 
the senses in being primary sources of feeling and of 
knowledge, localized in a peculiar set of organs ; their 
characteristic difference is summed up in the consciousness 
of active energy. 

The most fundamental contrast existing among the feelings 
of the human mind, is the contrast of Active and Passive. 
The exercise of rowing a boat gives a feeling of activitj^ or 
energy ; in a warm bath, the consciousness is of the passive 
kind. The contrast would appear to be embodied in the 
nervous system ; the outcarrying nerves, together with the 
nerve centres whence they immediately proceed, being asso- 
ciated with the feelings of activity ; the incarrying nerves and 
their allied centres with sensation or passivity. 

ISTot only should the muscular feelings form a class apart 
from the sensations, on the ground now stated, but it is farther 
believed that their consideration should precede the account 
of the senses. The reasons are — that movement precedes sen- 
sation, and is at the outset independent of any stimulus from 
without; and that action is a more intimate and inseparable 
property of our constitution than any of our sensations, and in 
fact enters as a component pgirt intJ every one of the senses, 
giviiig them the character of compounds, while itself is a simple 
and elementary property. 

Of the Muscular System, — The movements of the body are per- 
formed by means of the substance called muscle, or flesh : a sub- 
3 



14 MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

stance composed of very fine fibres, collected into separate masses, 
of great variety of form, each mass being a muscle. The peculiar 
property of the muscular substance is contractility, or the forcible 
shrinking of the fibres under a stimulus, whereby the muscle is 
shortened, and the attached bones drawn together in consequence. 
As an example, we may mention the muscle of the calf of the leg, 
a broad round mass of flesh, ending above and below in the strong 
white fibrous substance, known as tendon, by which it is connected 
with the bones ; the upper tendon Avith the bone of the leg, the 
lower with the heel ; its contraction draws the heel towards the 
leg, straightening the line of leg and foot, and thus compelling 
the body to rise. 

The ultimate fibres of the muscles, the fibrils or fibrillse (less 
than the ten-thousandth of an inch in diameter), are found to 
consist of rows of rectangular particles ; in the contraction of the 
muscle, these particles become shorter and thicker. The fibrils are 
made into bundles, about ^Ju of an inch in thickness, called 
fibres ; and the fibres are made up into larger bundles, or threads, 
which are visible to the eye, as the strings composing flesh. 

The contraction of the muscle requires the agency of the nerves, 
distributed copiously to the fibres. A farther condition of contrac- 
tile power is a supply of arterial blood. The oxidation of the sub- 
stances found in the blood is the ultimate source of muscular power; 
the oxygen, taken into the lungs, and the food, taken into the 
stomach, are the raw material of all the forces of the system. 

2. For tlie most part, our movements are stimulated 
through our senses, as when a flash of light or a loud sound 
makes us start ; but it is a fact of great importance, that 
movements arise without the stimulation of sensible 
objects, through some energy of the nerve centres them- 
selves, or some stimulus purely internal. This may be 
called the Spontaneous Activity of the system. 

Spontaneous Activity is the explanation of many appear- 
ances, and is an essential element of the will, on the theory 
maintained in this work. The following facts are adduced as 
both proving and illustrating the doctrine : — 

(1) The muscles never undergo an entire relaxation dur- 
ing life. Even in profound slumber, the}^ possess a certain 
deo-ree of tension, or rio^iditv. This state is called their 
' tonicity,' or tonic contraction. It is excited through the 
medium of the nerves. The cutting of the nerves, or the de- 
struction of the nerve centres, renders the muscles flaccid. 
The inference is, that at all times a stream of nervous energy 
flows to the muscles, irrespective of stimulation from without. 

(2) The permanent closure of the muscles called sphinc- 



PROOFS OF SPONTANEOUS ACTIVITY. 15 

ters, is an effect of the same nature. The lower extremity of 
the alimentary canal is kept close by a self-acting muscle ; 
if the connexion with the nerve centres is destroyed, this 
muscle is relaxed. 

(3) The operation of the involuntary muscles, as in 
breathing, the heart, and the movements of the intestine, 
shows that there is a provision for keeping up movements, in- 
dependent of the stimulus of the senses. These muscles never 
cease to ply. The only stimulation that could be assigned in 
their case is the contact of the materials propelled — the air 
in the lungs, the blood in the blood-vessels, the food in the 
stomach and bowels ; but even these contacts would fail to 
account for the first beginning of the movements. By what 
influence do we draw our first breath ? Still, what is con- 
tended for is, not the absence of internal organic influences, 
but the absence of agents operating on the external senses. 

(4) In wakening from sleep, movement often precedes 
sensation. Most commonly the first symptom of awakening 
is a general commotion of the frame, a number of spontaneous 
movements — the stretching of the limbs, the opening of the 
eyes, the expansion of the features — to which succeeds the 
revived sensibility to outward things. !N"o decided facts have 
ever been adduced to show that a stimulation of the senses 
invariably precedes the wakening movements. We are there- 
fore led to believe that the re-animation of the system consists 
in a rush of nervous power to the moving organs, at the same 
time that the susceptibility of the senses is renewed. 

(5) The movements of infancy, of young animals gene- 
rally, and of animals distinguished for activity, are strongly 
in point. The mobility of infants is very great, and the same 
feature characterizes childhood and youth. We may attribute 
it in part to the acute sensations and emotions of early years. 
But this is not the whole explanation. When the senses are 
in no ways solicited, the youthful mobility is strongly mani- 
fested ; it seems chiefly to follow the physical circumstances 
of rest and nutrition, and is, as might be expected, most 
vehement after confinement or restraint. 

The activity of young animals in general, and of animals 
specially active (as the insect tribe), are most adequately re- 
presented on the present hypothesis. When the kitten plays 
with a worsted ball, we always attribute the overflowing ful- 
ness of moving energy to the creature's own inward stimulus, 
to which the ball merely serves for a pretext. So an active 
young hound, refreshed by sleep, or kept in confinement, 



16 MOVEMENT A.ND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

pants for being let loose, not because of anything that attracts 
his view or kindles up his ear, but because a rush of activity 
courses through his members, rendering him uneasy till the 
confined energy has found vent in a chase or a run. We are 
iit no loss to distinguish this kind of activity from that awak- 
ened by sensation or emotion, and the distinction is accord- 
ingly recognized in the modes of interpreting the movements 
and feelings of animals. When a rider speaks of his horse as 
' fresh,' he implies that the natural activity is undischarged, 
and pressing for vent ; the excitement caused by mixing in a 
chase or in a battle, is a totally different thing from the spon- 
taneous vehemence of a full-fed and under-worked animal. 

(G) The activity of morbid excitement may next be 
quoted. Under a peculiar state of the nervous system, move- 
ments arise without any stimulation, or in undue proportion 
to the stimulants applied. This shows incontestably, that the 
condition of the nerve centres may be such as to originate 
activity, without any concurrence of sensible agencies ; now 
if there be an unhealthy spontaneity, there may also be a 
healthy mode, as in the freshness of the young and vigorous 
animal. There are occasions when it is impossible to be still ; 
the internal fires are generating force, which we cannot re- 
press. Certain drugs, as strychnine, induce this excessive 
spontaneity, in the shape of strong convulsive erections and 
movements of the body. 

(7 ) Activity and Sensibility are not developed in equal pro- 
portions in individual character; more frequently they stand in 
an inverse proportion to each other. The strong, active, rest- 
less temperament is usually the least sensitive, the least open 
to the varying solicitations of the senses. This energetic tem- 
perament is manifestly the result of a constitutional, self- 
prompting force. There is, in many individuals, a love of 
activity for its own sake^ a search after occasions for putting 
forth energy ; we may instance, the restless adventurer, the 
indefatigable traveller, the devotee of business, the lover of 
political bustle. The activity of the more susceptible natures 
is prompted by the feelings, and ceases when they are grati- 
fied ; as when a man like Wilberforce is stimulated to redress 
some fi.agrant wrong, and otherwise leads an inactive career. 

The Spontaneity of the system is shown in all the regions 
of muscular activity. Foremost of our muscular groupings is 
the Lucomotwe A2')]JLiriilus, which includes the limbs, together 
with the trunk ; in energetic promptings, these organs are the 
readiest means of discharging the surplus activity ; the ex- 



REGIONS OF SPONTANEOUS MOVEMENTS. 17 

cited animal walks, runs, flies, or gesticulates. The organs of 
Mastication form a second grouping. The Vocal Organs are an 
isolated group of great interest. The utterauce of the voice 
is, on many occasions, plainly due to mere freshness of the 
organs. The morning song of the bird bursts out spontane- 
ously, although also liable to the influence of infection, and 
other external causes. Among the smaller organs, we may 
mention the Tongue, so remarkable for flexibility ; its spon- 
taneous movements occur in the play of infancy, and are of 
importance in the beginnings of articulation. 

We might illustrate the spontaneous, as contrasted with 
the stimulated discharge, in the special aptitudes of animals. 
As the battery of the torpedo becomes charged by the mere 
course of nutrition, and requires to be periodically relieved by 
being poured upon some object or other, so we may suppose 
that the jaws of the tiger, the fangs of the serpent, the spin- 
ning apparatus of the spider, require at intervals to have some 
objects to spend themselves upon. It is said that the co»n- 
structiveness of the bee and the beaver incontinently mani- 
fests itself, even where there is no end to be gained. 

The spontaneous activity necessarily rises and falls with the 
vigour and state of nutrition of the system ; being abundant 
in states of good health, and deficient during fatigue, hunger, 
and sickness. 



THE MUSCULAI^ FEELINGS. 

3. There are three classes of these : — 

Eirst, Feelings connected with the organic condition of 
the muscles, as those arising from hurts, wounds, diseases, 
fatigue, rest, nutriment. 

Most of these aflections the muscles have in common with 
the other tissues of the body ; and the appropriate place for 
expounding them will be under a subsequent head. It is 
our purpose, at this stage, to exhibit prominently the active 
side of our nature, in its contrast to the passive or receptive 
side. 

Secondly, Feelings connected wdth muscular 'action^ 
including all the pleasures and pains of exercise. These 
are states peculiar to muscular activity. 



IS MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

Thirdly, The discriininative sensihilitij of mitsde, or the 
consciousness that arises during the varyini^ tension of the 
111 ovine: oi'C'ans. 

These are mental states of a neutral kind as refrards 
pleasure and pain, bat all-important as the basis of Intellect. 
The muscular feelings, like the sensations, have two charac- 
ters ; one in the region of Feeling strictly so called, and de- 
cisively shown in pleasure and pain ; the other in the region 
of Intellect, and manifested in discrimination, or the con- 
sciousness of difference. The two aspects may be illustrated, 
in the sense of sight, by comparing the rainbow or a bonfire 
with a man's name or an arithmetical number. 

I. Of tJie Feelings of Muscular Exercise.^ 

4. These are feelings proper and peculiar to the 
muscular system ; they cannot be produced in any other 
connexion. 

The first and simplest case is the dead strain, or exer- 
tion Avithout movement. 

Physical Side. — The physical circumstances of muscular 

* There are many thinas to be said with reference to Feeling in 
general ; bnt I consider it inexpedient to introduce the whole of the 
generalities hetore giving a certain number of examples in the concrete. 
Accordingly, I prefer to proceed at once with the Muscular Feelings and 
Sensations in the detail, and to expound the general laws and properties 
of Feeling in a chapter introductory to the Emotions. All that is 
necessary, in the meantime, is to understand the plan followed in the 
description of the feelings ; and, with this view, a few explanatory obser- 
vations are here offered. 

All feelings have a Physical Side, or relation to our bodily organs ; 
the sensations, for example, arise on the stimulation of a special organ 
of sense ; and both sensations and emotions have a characteristic outward 
display, or expression, which indicates their existence to a spectator. I 
include in the description of each feeling whatever is known of its physi- 
cal accompaniments. 

The feeling proper, or t^e xMental Side, has its relationships exhausted 
under the three fundamental attributes of Mind — Feeling, Volition, and 
Intellect. As Feeling, it is pleasurable, painful, or neutral — its Quality ; 
it has Degree, as regards Intensity, or as regards Quantity ; and it may 
have Special characteristics besides. Farth(>r, all feedings that are either 
pleasurable or painful are motives to the Will ; this is their Volitional 
property. Lastly, when we look to the susceptibility of being discri- 
minated, compared, and remembered, wo are dealing with Intellectual 
properties, in which feelings arc not necessarily identical, because agree- 
ing in other things. 



MUSCULA^It EXERCISE. — PHYSICAL SIDE. 19 

tension, so far as known, are these. There is a shrinking or 
contracting of the length of the muscle, through the shortening 
and widening of the ultimate particles that make up each fibril. 
To induce the contraction, there is required a nerve current 
from the brain, by the outgoing or motor nerves. Equallj 
essential is the presence of blood : in which oxidation is going 
on, in proportion to the muscular energy produced. 

There are numerous indirect and remote consequences of 
muscular exertion. The increased consumption of ox3^gen 
and the production of carbonic acid give more work to the 
lungs, augmenting the breathing action. From the same 
causes, there is a quickening also of the heart and circulation; 
to which follows a rise of animal heat throughout the body. 
Partly from the accumulation of waste products, and partly 
from the augmented flow of blood, and the increased tempera- 
ture, there is an augmentation in the eliminating function of 

The plan in its completeness may be represented thus: — 
Physical Side. 

Bodily Origin. (For Sensations chiefly). 
Bodily Diffusion, expression, or embodiment. 
Mental Side. 

Characters as Feeling. 

Quality, i. e., Pleasure, Pain, Indifference. 
Degree. 

As regards Intensity or acuteness. 
As regards Quantity, mass, or volume. 
Special characteristics. 
Volitional characters. 

Mode of influencing the Will, or Motives to Action. 
Intellectual characters. 

Susceptibility to Discrimination and to Agreement, 
Degree of Eetainability, that is Ideal Persistence and 
Eecoverability. 
It is to be remarked that, as a general rule, pleasures agree in their 
physical expression, or embodiment, and also in their mode of operating 
on the will, namely, for their continuance, increase, or renewal. In like 
manner, pains have a common expression, and a common influence in 
promoting action for their removal, abatement, or avoidance. Hence the 
lact, that a scate is pleasurable or painful, carries with it these two other 
facts as a matter of course. 

Again, as regards the Intellect ; Discrimination, Agreement, and Ee- 
tainability are to a certain extent proportional to the degree of the feeling, 
or the strength of the impression. This being the case, the statement 
of the degree involves the probable nature of the properties connected 
with the Intellect. Hence, in most cases, it is unnecessary to carry the 
delineation through all the particulars of the table. It is only when a 
feeling possesses any peculiarities rendering it an exception to the general 
laws of coincidence now mentioned, that the full description is called for. 
Two or three examples of the complete detail will bo given. 



20 MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

the skin. Moreover, the great demand for blood in the 
muscles causes it to be withdrawn from other organs, such as 
the brain and the stomach ; thus diminishing mental excite- 
ment, and interrupting for the timie the digestive processes- 
Provided sufficient food is supplied, the entire effect of exer- 
cise is favourable to the animal processes ; the increased func- 
tions of the lungs, heart, and skin are good for the system 
generally ; the temporary withdrawal of blood from the 
brain, and from the stomach, prepares the way for its going 
back with renewed efficiency. Mankind have always known 
that muscular exercise, in proper time and quantity, improves 
health.^ 

The Expression or outward embodiment of muscular exer- 
tion is determined by the muscles engaged, and by the ten- 
dency of the rest to chime in with them, through a general 
law of the system. In so far as not completely pre- occupied 
in this way, the features and other organs of expression are 
affected according as the mental state is pleasurable or the re- 
verse. 

Mental Side. — Of i^eeZm^ proper, the 'first point is Quality. 
Observation shows that this is pleasurable, indifferent, or 
painful, according to the condition of the system. The 
first outburst of muscular vigour in a healthy frame, after 
rest and nourishment, is highly pleasurable. The intensity 
of the pleasure gradually subsides into indifference ; and, if 
the exercise is prolonged beyond a certain time, pain ensues. 
In ordinary manual labour there may be, at commencing in 
the morning and after meals, a certain amount of pleasure 
caused by the exercise ; but it is probable that during the 
greater part of a workman's day, the feeling of exertion is in 
most cases indifferent. If we confine ourselves to the dis- 
charge of surplus energy in muscular exertion, there can be 
no doubt that this is a considerable source of pleasure in the 
average of human beings, and doabtless also in the animal 
tribes. The fact is shown in the love of exercise for its own 
sake, or apart from the ends of productive industry, and the 

* The muscles receive principally motor, or outcarrying nerves ; they 
are not, however, destitute of sensory or incarrying fibres. It is an 
inference supported by many facts, and accepted by the generality of 
physiologists, thai the feeling of exertion accompanies the outgoing nerve 
current, and does not arise, as a sensation, by the sensory fibres. The 
other feelings of muscle being of a more passive kind, and are allied 
to sensation, and seem to be connected with the ingoing currents by 
the sensitive fibres. See the whole question argued at length, * Sensea 
und Intellect,' p. 92, 2nd edit. 



MUSCULAK EXERCISE. — MENTAL SIDE. 21 

preservation of health. In the case of active sports and 
amusements, there are additional sources of pleasurable ex- 
citement, but the delight in the mere bodilj exertion would 
still be reckoned one ingredient in the mixture. 

As to the Degree of this pleasure, it is massive rather than 
acute. The sensibility of muscle under the dead strain is not 
very great, and becomes considerable only by multiplication 
or extent, as when a number of large muscles are powerfully 
engaged. 

We estimate pleasures directly, by comparing them in our 
consciousness, as when we decide which of two apples is the 
sweetest, and prefer one picture to another. We estimate 
them indirectly, by the amount of pain that they can subdue, 
as in restoring cheerfulness under a shock of suffering. 
Bodily exercise has a great soothing power, but not exclu- 
sively from its being a source of pleasure. It has the physical 
effect of deriving blood from the brain, so as to calm excite- 
ment, and a farther effect to be next noticed. 

The third point in the description of a mental state, con- 
sidered as Feeling, is its Speciality, apart from quality and 
degree. I^ow, we have already remarked that there is a gene- 
ric difference of nature between muscular feeling proper and 
sensation proper. This radical distinction in kind is familiar 
to each person's experience, and is designated by such phrases 
as 'the sense of power,' 'the feeling of energy put forth,' ' the 
sense of resistance,' &c. It has the peculiarity of determining 
an attitude of mind hostile to passive feeling, and to self-con- 
sciousness in every form ; in proportion as it is manifested 
we are indifferent as regards pleasure and pain ; pleasure may 
be stimulated, but will not be felt. This attitude of indifference, 
coupled with the consciousness of energy, is the ultimate mean- 
ing of what is called the Object^ as opposed to the Subject, — 
the not-nie, as opposed to the me. Even the pleasure of exercise 
and the pain of fatigue during exercise are not steady, but 
fitful and transitory feelings. It is only at intervals that we 
remit the putting forth of effort, and subjectively attend to 
the resulting pleasure or pain. 

There are thus two modes of mental indifference, or mental 
life with the absence of pleasure or pain. The one is the state of 
neutral emotion, as in mere surprise, and may be called subjective 
indifference. The other is the objective attitude, under which all 
emotion is for the moment submerged. 

The Volitional property of the pleasure, or the pain, of mus- 
cular exercise falls under the general law of the will. As 



22 MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

pleasure, and in proportion to tlie degree, it works for its own 
continnance or increase. Owing to the existence of the spon- 
taneous discharge, the stimulus of pleasure is not necessary to 
begin activity, but is a co-operating cause for maintaining it 
when once begun. 

In tbe Intellectual point of view, a feeling is considered as 
to Discrimination (together with Ao^reement) and as to Retain- 
ability in the memory. These properties are so important as 
to constitute a distinct branch of the subject. I shall merely 
allude here to one small part of the case, namely, our recol- 
lection of states of muscular exercise regarded as pleasure, 
so as to render them an object of desire and pursuit when 
they are not actually present. This is a truly intellectual 
property of feeling. In so far as active amusements and 
sports, and occupations largely involving muscular exercise, 
are a fixed object of passionate pursuit, to that extent 
they abide in thought, or stand high in one of their intel- 
lectual aspects. 

o. As examples of the dead strain, we may mention the 
supporting of a weight, the holding on as a drag, the exer- 
tion of force, or the encounter of resistance in, pressing, 
squeezing, wrestling, &c. A certain amount of accompanying 
movement does not alter the character of the situation ; as, 
for example, in slowly dragging a heavy vehicle. 

6. Exertion %oith Tnovement, 

Movement developes a new mode of sensibility, which is 
more apparent as the force expended is small ; a circumstance 
rendering it likely that the special effect is associated with the 
passive sensibility of muscle. 

Physically, all that we know of the fact of movement is 
the perpetual change of the muscular tension ; there is a con- 
stantly varying and alternately remitted strain, instead of the 
pouring forth of energy in a fixed attitude. 

Mentally, the characters differ according as the niove- 
m.ents are slow or quicJc, 

7. And first of sloiu niovements. 

Under a loitering, sauntering walk, drawling tones of 
speech, solemn gestures, and dawdling occupation, there is a 
voluminous pleasurable feeling, with little energy expended. 
The two facts are mutually implicated. The sense of expended 
energy is wanting, and the attention is disengaged for the 
passive sensibility of the muscles ; so that, in fact, with the 



FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT. 23 

show of activity there is the substance of passivity. The state 
is closely allied to muscular repose, or the reaction from great 
muscular expenditure, and to the approach of sleep. Slow 
movements are of a soothing tendency ; they quiet the 
irritated nerves, and prepare the way for complete repose. 
They have a close alliance with the emotions of awe, solemnity, 
and veneration ; hence the funeral pace, the slow enunciation 
ot- devotional exercises, the long-drawn tones of organ music, 
are appropriated to religious worship. 

8. Movements gradually increasing or diminishing give 
rise to a still greater degree of pleasurable feeling. The 
gradual dying away of a motion is pleasurable and graceful 
in every sort of activity — in gesture, in the dance, in speech, 
and in visible movements. It is this peculiarity that seems 
to constitute the beauty of curved lines and rounded forms. 
We may explain it on the great law of the mind that connects 
all sensibility with change of impression ; in these rising and 
falling movements, there is unceasing variation of effect. 

9. Next as to giiich movements. 

Movements of great rapidity, whether the energy expended 
be great or little, have a tendency to excite the nervous 
system ; they are in that respect a kind of stimulant, like a 
loud noise, or the glare of light. All the mental functions are 
quickened in consequence. It depends on circaro.stances, 
whether this effect is pleasurable or the opposite. If the nerv- 
ous system is fresh and vigorous, the stimalation is agreeable, 
and may end in a kind of intoxication ; in a jaded condition 
of the nerves, the effect is apt to be acutely painful and dis- 
tressing. Under excitement, there may be a third situation, 
wherein fatigue passes off in favour of a delirious pleasure, for 
which the s^^stem has afterwards to pay the cost by a pro- 
tracted depression. The ecstatic worship of antiquity, which 
consisted in wild and furious dances in honour of Bacchus and 
of Demeter, brought on a peculiar frenzy of intense enjoy- 
ment ; and something of the same kind still happens among 
the Orientals, and in a less degree with the lovers of dancing 
everywhere. The physical circumstance may be presumed to 
be a great excess of blood to the brain, the result of the pro- 
tracted stimulation. 

It appears thus, that movement, in the extreme phases of 
slowness and quickness, and not involving much exertion, 
does not represent the main fact of the consciousness of mus- 
cular energy, but certain incidental peculiarities allied more 



24 MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

to the passive, than to the active, side of our mental constitu- 
tion. If great energy is to be put forth under these modes of 
movement, their incidental character will be subordinated to 
the proper consciousness of expended muscular force. 

10. A third situation conuected with muscular exercise 
is improperly expressed by passive movements. 

Riding in a vehicle is the commonest instance ; carriage 
exercise is both pleasurable and wholesome. There is a gentle 
muscular stimulus, such as accompanies slow and varying 
movements, which results in voluminous passive sensibility. 
To this Dr. Arnott adds the circumstance, that the shaking of 
the body propels the blood ; and, as it can move only one way, 
the circulation is quickened. The fresh air also counts in the 
effect. Another mental influence is derived from the shiftinor 
scene ; the eye is regaled with novelty, without the labour of 
moving to obtain it. 

For the sensuous luxury of motion, the Americans have 
devised the rocking chair, an extension of the children's 
hobby-horse and swing. 

11. Of the Biscriininative or Intellectual Sensibility of Muscle. 

11. Along with every feeling, we have a consciousness 
of degree. 

To be affected more or less, is a consequence of being 
affected at all. Even our pleasures and pains are discriminated 
according to their intensity. To regard any feeling as differ- 
ing from another in quantity, or otherwise, is the first condition 
of intelligence, or thought ; it is the feature of distinctness, 
character, or individuality, as opposed to blank sameness or 
monotony. Not to distinguish one colour from another is a 
form of blindness ; to be more than ordinarilj^ discriminative is 
to have a high intellectual endowment. The discriminations 
in the muscular feeling are of great moment. 

12. First, with respect to the degree of Exertion, or 
Expended Force, movement being- left out of the account. 

We here go back upon the feeling of muscular exercise, 
considered not as giving pleasure or pain, which are subjective 
states, but as making up our object attitude, under Avhich our 
consciousness is merely of the degree of expended energy. 
This state is the sense or feeling of Resistance, and is our con- 
ception of Body, and our measure of Force, Momentum, 



DISCRIMINATION OF EXPENDED FORCE. 25 

Inertia, or the Mechanical property of matter. No feeling of 
the human mind is more fundamental, more constant, or more 
worked up into complex products, than this. When a weight 
is put into the hand, we are aware of an expenditure of force ; 
when the amount is increased, we are conscious of increased 
expenditure. The delicacy of our discrimination is the small- 
ness of the addition or the subtraction that will alter our con- 
sciousness. An ordinary person can discriminate between 
39 and 40 ounces. 

The feeling of graduated resistance is brought out in en- 
countering or checking a body in motion, as in stopping a 
carriage or in obstructing another person's progress. It is 
also manifested in putting forth power to move resisting 
bodies, as in rowing a boat, digging the ground, or other 
manual exertion ; likewise in bearing burdens. We have it 
present to us, in supporting our own body. Our varying 
experience in all these forms, consists of a varying muscular 
consciousness, a series of modes of expended energy, which 
the memory can retain, and which we can associate with 
other mental states, as with the sensations of colour, of sound, 
of contact, &c. We connect one degree of resistance with a 
small, and another with a large, optical impression, as in com- 
paring a pebble with a paving stone. 

The delicate discrimination of degrees of muscular expen- 
diture serves us in many manual operations ; for example, in 
graduating a blow, in throwing a missile to a mark, and in 
forming plastic substances to a certain consistency. 

We have a consciousness of distinctness, remarkable in its 
kind, between exertions made by different muscles ; for ex- 
ample, in the two hands. It is not the same to us that a 
pound weight is put into either hand ; if it were so, we should 
be in the proverbial situation of not knowing the right hand 
from the left. 

13. Secondly, a muscular exertion may -vary in con- 
tiniiance; and this variation is felt by us as different from 
variation in the intensity of the effect. 

A dead strain of unvarying amount being supposed, wo 
are differently affected according to its duration. If we make 
a push lasting a quarter of a minute, and, after an interval, 
renew it for half a minute, there is a difference in the con- 
sciousness of the two efforts. The endurance implies an in- 
creased expenditure of power in a certain mode, and we are dis- 
tinctly aware of such an increase. We know also that it is 



26 MOVEMENT AND THE MUSCULAR FEELINGS. 

not the same as an increase in the intensity of the strain. The 
two modes of increase are not only discriminated as regards 
degree, they are also felt to be different modes. The one is 
our feeling and measure of Resistance or Force, the other 
stands for a measure of Time. All impressions made on the 
mind, whether those of muscular energy, or those of the 
ordinary senses, are felt differently according as they endure 
for a longer or a shorter time. 

The estimate of continuance thus attaches to dead resist- 
ance, but not to that alone. When we put forth power to 
move, as in pulling an oar, or in lifting a weight, we are aware 
of different degrees of continuance of the moyjment. More- 
over, we do not confound raovement with dead strain ; we are 
distinctively affected by the two modes of exercising force ; 
supposing the total amount of power expended the same, the 
consciousness of each is characteristic. 

]^ow Continuance of Movement expresses a different fact 
from continuance of dead strain. It is the sweep of the organ 
through space, and is, therefore, the measure of space or ex- 
tension. It is the first step, the elementary sensibility, in our 
knowledge of space. Other experiences must be combined in 
this great fundamental notion, but here we have the primary 
ingredient. 

The simplest form of muscular continuance is the sweep 
of a limb in one direction, nearly' corresponding with linear 
extension (the spontaneous sweep of the arm is not a straight 
line). A greater complication of movement is involved in 
superficial extension ; and a greater still, in cubical extension. 
But in the last resort, linear, superficial, and solid extension 
are to us nothing but the consciousness of continued and com- 
plicated movements, which we can associate in different groups, 
and remember among our intellectual acquisitions. A square 
foot of surface is embodied in one muscular grouping, a circle 
of three feet in diameter in another, a nine inch cube in a 
third ; these muscular groupings may be tactual, visual, or 
locomotive, one or all, as will be afterwards seen. 

14. Thirdly, as regards movements, the sjoced may vary ; 
and we are characteristically conscious of the variation. 

It is probable that the peculiar difference of character, 
above adverted to, between slow and quick movements, is an 
element in our discrimination of change of speed. When we 
increase the rate of movement of the arm, we are aware not 
merely that more virtue has gone out of us, but also that the 



DISCEIMINATION OF VELOCITY OF MOVEMENT. 27 

mode is not tlie same as an increased strain or an increased 
continuance. This is a valuable addition to our means of 
muscular discrimination. It enables us, in the first place, to 
be directly cognizant of the important attribute of speed or 
velocity of movement, whether in ourselves or in bodies with- 
out us. It supplies, in the next place, a farther means of 
measuring extension, checking and supplemonting that derived 
from the continuance of a uniform movement. A greater 
velocity, under one amount of continuance, is eqaivalent to a 
less velocity with a greater contiauance. 



CHAPTER II. 

SENSATION. 

1. A SENSATION is defined as the mental impression, 
feeling, or conscious state, resulting from the action of 
external things on some part. of the body, called on that 
account sensitive. 

Such are the feelings caused by tastes, smells, sounds, or 
sights. They are distinguished from the feelings of energy 
expended from within (the muscular), and from the emotions, 
as fear and anger, which do not arise immediately from the 
stimulus of a sensitive surface. 

2. The Sensations are classified according to their 
bodily Organs ; hence the division into Five Senses. 

Distinctness of organ is accompanied with distinctness of 
agent^ and of feeling, or consciousness. Light, as an agency, 
is distinct from sound, and the consciousness under each is 
characteristic ; we should never confound a sight with a sound. 

The common enumeration of the Five Senses is de- 
fective. 

When the senses are regarded principally as sources of 
knowledge, or the basis of intellect, the ^ve commonly given 
are tolerably comprehensive ; but when we advert to sensation, 
in the aspect of pleasure and pain, there are serious omissions. 
Hunger, thirst, repletion, suffocation, warmth, and the variety 



28 SENSATIONS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 

of states designated by physical comfort and discomfort, are 
left out ; yet these possess the characteristics of sensation as 
above defined, having a local organ or seat, a definite agency, 
and a characteristic mode of consciousness. 

The omission is best supplied by constituting a group 
of Organic Sensations, or Sensations of Organic Life. 

In the Senses as thus made up, it is useful to remark a 
division into two classes, according to their importance in the 
operations of the Intellect. If we examine the Sensations of 
Organic Life, Taste, and Smell, we shall find that as regards 
pleasure and pain, or in the point of view of Feeling, they are 
of great consequence, but that they contribute little of the 
permanent forms and imagery employed in our Intellectual 
processes. This last function is mainly served by Touch, 
Hearing, and Sight, which may therefore be called the Intel- 
lectual Senses by pre-eminence. They are not, however, 
thereby prevented from serving the other function also, or 
from entering into the pleasures and pains of our emotional 
life. 

SENSATIONS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 

Like the senses generally, these will be classified ac- 
cording to Locality or Seat. 

Organic Muscular Feelings, 

3. The passive feelings, or sensations proper, connected 
with Muscle, are chiefly the pains of injuiy, and the pains 
and pleasures of fatigue and repose. 

When a muscle is cut, lacerated, or otherwise injured, or 
when seized with spasm, there is a feeling of acute pain. We 
shall describe this state in full, as typifying, once for all, the 
class of acute physical pains. 

Physical Side. — The Bodily Origin is some destruction or 
injury of the muscular fibres, such as to irritate violently the 
imbedded nerves. 

The Bodily Difi'usion, or Expression, is various and in- 
teresting to study. The features are violently contorted, and 
assume certain characteristic appearances ; the voice is excited 
to sharp utterances ; the ivhole body is agitated. In short, 
movements are stimulated, intense according to the pain. 



ACUTE PHYSICAL PAINS TYPIFIED. 29 

The accompaniment of sobbing shows that the involuntary 
muscles and the glands may also be affected ; which is con- 
firmed by closely observing the changes in the heart and the 
lungs, the effects on digestion, on the skin, &c. ; all which 
changes are of the nature of depression and derangement. 

Mental Side. — As Feelings, these states are indicated by 
the name. In Quality, they are painful ; in Degree, acute or 
intense. As respects Specialities of character, we find a cer- 
tain number of discriminative names ; pains are racking, 
burning, shooting, pricking, smarting, aching, stunning ; dis- 
tinctions of importance in patholog}^. 

Violent pains are apt to rouse certain of the special emo- 
tions, as grief, terror, rage ; the selection depending less upon 
the nature of the pain than on the temper and circumstances 
of the individual. 

The Volitional character of an acute pain would be, accord- 
ing to the law of the Will, to stimulate efforts for relief and 
avoidance. Such is the fact, but with an important qualifica- 
tion. The operation of the will demands a certain remaining 
vigour in the active organs; now, pain' soon exhausts the 
strength ; hence the will is paralyzed by long continuance of 
the irritation. A temporary smart quickens the energies, a 
continued agony crushes them. 

Part of the expression of a sufferer is made up of postures 
aad efforts of a voluntary kind, prompted with a view to 
relief; these vary with the locality and the nature of the attack. 

The Intellectual quality of acute physical pains is compli- 
cated. Intensity of excitement is favourable to impressive- 
ness ; while in extreme degrees, the intellectual functions are 
paralyzed. These two considerations allowed for, the dis- 
crimination and the perisistence of organic states are at the 
bottom of the scale of feelings. They are very inadequately 
remembered. 

People differ greatly in their effective recollection of pains, 
no less than in the memory for language or for scenery ; and 
the consequences are notable. First, the recollection of pain is 
the essential feature of preventive or precautionary volition, 
that is. Prudence. Secondly, it constitutes the basis of fellow- 
feeling, or sympathy. The Socratio doctrine that knowledge 
is virtue, might be transmuted into a profound and important 
truth, if knowledge were interpreted as the effective recollec- 
tion of good and evil. Virtue has its sources in the retentive 
property of the Intellect ; but the subject matter of the recol- 
lection is not knowledge, but feelings. 



30 SENSATIONS OF OKGANIC LIFE. 

The special muscular pain of cramp, or spasm, may be 
separately noticed. Physically, it is the violent contraction of 
some portion of a muscle, through an irritation of the motor 
nerves. The best mode of relief is to give way to the contrac- 
tion, by relaxing the muscle to the utmost. Mentally, this is 
the species of pain named racking ; it arises from violent mus- 
cular distension. The pains of the uterus in childbirth are 
of this nature. Distressing spasms occur in the muscular 
fibres of the stomach and intestine. 

The pains of excessive fatigue are aruong the acute pains of 
muscle. Like spasm, they have a peculiar character, connect- 
ing them with the muscle, and not with any other tissue. 

The state of muscular repose after ordinary fatigue is one 
of our pleasurable feelings. There is a complication of physi- 
cal circumstances attending it. The blood previously accu- 
mulated in the muscular tissue, is now returning to the other 
important organs, the brain, the stomach, &c. ; while the 
muscles are remitted from further action. Both causes con- 
cur to yield pleasure, not acute, but massive. The other or- 
ganic accompaniments cannot disguise the muscle's own sen- 
sibility to the condition of repose ; " the feeling is one that has 
a certain reflexion of energy : — 

Even in our ashes glow their wonted fires. 

There is, in rest after exercise, a close kinship to sleep ; as if 
a part of the fact were already realized. These pleasures are 
the reward of bodily toil and hard exercise. 

We may include under the present head what little is to 
be said on the Bones and Ligaments, whose sensibility is ex- 
clusively manifested in the shape of pain from injury or 
disease. The diseases and lacerations of the periosteum are 
intensely painful ; a blow on the shin is acute and prostrating. 
The ligaments are painful when wrenched, although not when 
cut. The tendonous part of the muscles seems to share in the 
pain of over-fatigue. The joints are the seat of painful dis- 
eases, as gout, if not also rheumatism. 



Organic Sensations of Nerve. 

4. Besides being the raediiini of all sensibility, the 
nerves are the seat of a special class of feelings related to 
the Organic condition of the Nervous tissue. In this class, 
we may include acute affections of the nerves ; the de- 



AFFECTIONS OF THE NERVOUS SUBSTANCE. 31 

pression arising from nervous fatigue and exhaustion ; and 
the exhilaration of freshness and of stimulants. 

(1) Diseases and injuries of the nerves are productive of 
intense snfiering, as in tic-doleareux and the. other neuralgic 
affections. It is enough to class these among acute pains. 
Their specific character, as feelings, is somewhat different 
from the acute pains of muscle, or of the other tissues, but 
language hardly sufB.ces to mark the difference. 

(2) Nervous fatigue or exhaitstion, caused by over- 
exertion of mind, and even of body, by deficiency of rest or 
nutriment, and by intense or prolonged suffering, may induce 
neuralgic affections, but more commonly ends in general 
depression. This state is known to every one. Technically, 
we may designate it as pain, not acute, but massive ; the 
amount is known by comparison, and by the pleasure swal- 
lowed up in neutralizing it. Weakness, ennui, heaviness, 
insupportable dullness, the sense as of an atmosphere of lead, 
the blackness of darkness, — are names for this general condi- 
tion. An accumulation of pains and privations will produce 
the misery of depression, while the nerves are fresh and 
healthy, as in the punishment of the young offender ; and, on 
the other hand, a morbid change in the nerve substance will 
cause the state in any one surrounded with delights, and 
shielded from hardship. 

(3) It is implied in what is now said, that the healthy con- 
dition of the nerves is of itself a cause of exhilaration. This is 
the unspeakable blessing of perfect health, the result of a good 
constitution well preserved by the circumstances of a happy lot. 

This mental condition is, for a short tim.e, equalled, and 
even surpassed, by the perilous help of stiviulating drugs, 
whose nature it is to operate directly on the substance of the 
nerves. 

Organic Feelings of the Circulation and Nutrition, 

5. Although it is difficult to isolate the separate or- 
ganic influences, in their agency on the mind, we are 
entitled to presume that feelings of exhilaration and of 
depression are connected with the Circulation of the JBlood 
and the Nourishment of the Tissues. 

The formidable states, -thirst and inanition, arise from 
deficiency in the blood in the first instance ; but a derange- 



32 SENSATIONS OF ORGANIC LIFE. 

ment of the organs generally must be assamed to account for 
their virulence. 

Thirst is not purely localized in the stomach ; and Inani- 
tion is different from Hunger. Both conditions, mentally 
viewed, are modes of suffering, not so acute as acute pains 
proper, but yet much more so than mere dejection, and at the 
same time large in mass or volume. There is present the de- 
pressing state of exhaustion, coupled with the acute irritation 
of deranged organs. 

A feeling purely connected with the Circulation is what 
arises from long confinement to one posture, sitting or lying. 
The circulation in the skin being arrested, an uneasy feeling 
results, which prompts to changes of posture ; it causes great 
discomfort to the bed-ridden patient, as well as being a source 
of new disease ; an efficient remedy for both has been found in 
Dr. Arnott's water bed. 

Part of the consciousness of good or ill health must depend 
on the contact of the blood with the nerve tissue ; it being 
hardly possible to assign the proportions severally due to the 
nerve's own condition, and to that nutritive contact, although 
the facts have to be distinguished in the analysis of the mind. 
The sleek, fat, full-blooded temperament has its peculiar mental 
tone, attributable to the circulation and nutrition rather than 
to the quality of the nerves. 

Feelings of Resinration, 

6. The interchange of oxygen with carbonic acid takes 
place at the surface of the lungs, and any variation in the 
rate of this interchange is accompanied with sensibility. 
The extreme form of pain is Suffocation ; the opposite 
state is a grateful Freshness or exhilaration. 

Oxygen is our aerial food ; our vital forces are measured 
by the amount of it consumed in oxidizing our food proper. 
The first requisite in the process is that the oxygen be abun- 
dantly inhaled by the lungs. The hindrance of the inhalation 
is .painful, the furtherance pleasurable. A settled pace is 
neutral. 

The characteristic sensibility of the lungs is manifested in 
suffocation. Its causes are the want of air, as from drownincr, 
from certain irritating gases, such as chlorine or sulphurous 
acid, from asthma and other diseases. The insupportable sen- 
sation ensuing on want of breath hardly resembles any other 



SENSATION OF PURE AIR. 33 

feeling. It has a certain element of the racking pain, as of 
muscles drawn opposite ways ; but it is something more than 
muscular, and must be set down at present as a unique result, 
of a unique process. 

Short of suffocation, there may be a iemporary lowering 
of the respiratory vigour, the effect of which is mere depres- 
sion of tone, without characteristic accompaniment. Ou enter- 
ing a crowded room, the depression is instantly felt ; it may 
approach, or amount to, fainting. 

The transition to a purer atmosphere gives the exhilaration, 
described as buoyancy and freshness ; but we can scarcely de- 
termine how much of this is due to the better oxidation of the 
blood throughout the system, and how much to a stimulation 
of the surface of the lungs. The extreme case of suffocation 
must be held as proving a special lung-sensibility ; whence 
we are to presume that part of the sensation of changes in the 
air is localized in the lungs. 

Neither the continuation of the same state of the air, nor a 
very gradual change, is accompanied with sensation, a fact 
exemplifying the most universal condition of the production 
of consciousness, namely, change of impression from one state 
to another. 

Feelings of Seat and Cold. 

7. Changes of Temperature give rise to feeling, in all 
parts of the body, although the greatest sensitiveness is in 
the skin. 

The operation of cold and heat is on the organic functions. 
The capillary circulation is first affected ; the vessels being 
contracted by cold, and expanded by heat. The contraction 
of the vessels stops the supply of blood, and diminishes the 
nutrition of the parts, causing organic depression and discom- 
fort. At the same time, however, a reflex stimulus to the lungs 
quickens the breathing action, and additional oxygen is taken 
in ; so that, indirectly, the vital forces are increased, and the 
temporary and local depression may be more than atoned for. 
We may thus account for the bracing effects of cold applied 
within certain limits. Heat is in every respect the obverse. 

The sensation of Cold is, as a rule, painful, and may be 
either acute or massive ; nowhere is this distinction in the two 
modes of Degree so clearly marked. An acute cold acts like 
a cut or a bruise, and is sufficiently characterized among acute 
physical pains ; the destruction of the tissue and the irritation 



34 SENSATIONS OF OKGANIC LIFE. 

of tlie nerve is the same as in a scald. The onassive feeling of 
cold, expressed by chillness, may amount to extreme wretched- 
ness. 

The sensation of Warmth, on emerging from rold, is one 
of the greatest of physical enjoyments. It may be aoute, as in 
drinking warm liquid, or massive, as in the bath, or other warm 
surrounding. Of passive physical pleasure, it is perhaps the 
typical form ; the other modes may be, and constantly are, 
illustrated by comparison with it ; as are also the genial pas- 
sive emotions — love, beauty, &c. 

The principle above alluded to, — namely, change of im- 
pression as a condition of consciousness, is also prominently 
exemplified in heat and cold ; an even temperature gives no 
sensation. 

Sensations of the Alimentary Canal, 

8. These sensations, although closely allied to Taste, 
are not to be confounded with it. 

The objects of the sense are the materials taken into 
the body as food and drink. 

Food is variously classified. Water is the liquid basis, or 
vehicle. The solids are divided into Saccharine substances, 
including starch and sugar ; Oily substances, as the various 
fats and oils, including alcohol ; Albuminous substances (which 
contain nitrogen), as albumen, the fibre of meat, caseine (from 
cheese), gelatine, &c. These last are requisite in renewing 
the tissues, which nearly all contain nitrogen ; while the 
others serve the more exclusive function of producing force, 
(as muscular power, nervous power, and animal heat,) by 
slow combustion or oxidation, which is also the destination of 
the largest part of the albuminous food. 

9. Omitting the physiology of Digestion, we may 
enumerate, as follows, the chief feelings due to Ali- 
mentary states — Eelish and Eepletion, Hunger, Nausea, 
and the Pains of Deranged Digestion. 

Relish and Repletion are the pleasurable states of eating. 
Varying with the digestive power of the system, and with 
the quality of the food, these feelings are, in ordinary cir- 
cumstances, an important part of human pleasure. The first 
stage is represented by Relish, a pleasurable sensation, both 
acute and of considerable amount. The volitional energy 
inspired by it, in all animals, is the most remarkable testimony 



PLEA.SUKES AND PAINS OF DIGESTION. 35 

to its intensity as pleasure. The acute stage of relish is suc- 
ceeded by the more voluminous pleasure of Repletion, whose 
seat is in the surface of the stomach, the part engaged in the 
digestion of^the food ; a massive exhilaration, closely allied to 
agreeable \^/armth, and to the elation of stimulants. 

The physical concomitants of Hunger are a collapsed con- 
dition of the stomach, and a deficiency of nutritive material in 
the system. Of the feeling itself, the first stages are mere 
depression or uneasiness ; next come on gnawing pains re- 
ferred to the region of the stomach, and in part muscular ; 
these are followed by sensations of a more massive character, 
derived from the system at large, and indicating the stage of 
inanition or starvation. 

Nausea and Disgust express a mode of powerful feeling 
characteristic of digestion, as suffocation is of the lungs. The 
feeling is associated with the act of vomiting ; the wretched- 
ness of it in extreme cases, as sea-sickness, is insufierable. 
The sensation is unique. The healthy routine of comfortable 
digestion is exchanged for a depression great in mass, and 
aggravated by acute nervous sufiering. The memory of this 
state is an active recoil from whatever causes it ; hence disgust 
is a term for the most intense repugnance and loathing. 

The pains of Deranged Digestion are numerous. Some are 
extremely acute, as spasm in any part of the intestine. Many 
forms of indigestion are known simply as inducing a depressed 
tone, or interfering with the exhilaration of healthy meals. 
Sluggishness of the bowels is attended with massive depres- 
sion ; the re-action brings a^orresponding buoyancy. 

Under the present head may be classed the feelings con- 
nected with the sexual organs, the mammary glands in 
woman, and the lachrymal gland and sac. These are the 
result of organic processes in the first instance ; but they 
enter into complicated alliances, to be afterwards noticed, with 
our special emotions. 

There still remain the important organic functions of the 
Skin, which are attended with pleasurable and painful sensi- 
bilities. They will be noticed under the sense of Touch. 

In the Muscular Feelings, together with the Organic Sen- 
sations now enumerated, arises that large body of our sensi- 
bility denominated physical Comfort and Discomfort. 



36 SENSE OF TASTE. 



SENSE OF TASTE. 

1. The sense of Taste, attached to the entrance of the 
alimentary canal, is a source of pleasure and pain, and a 
means of discrimination, in taking food. 

The Objects of Taste are chiefly the materials of food. 

Of mineral bodies, water is without taste. Bat most 
liquid substances, and most soHds that can be liquified or dis- 
solved, have taste ; vinegar, common salt, alum, are famihar 
instances. 

ISTearly all vegetable and animal products, in like manner, are 
characterized by taste. A few substances are insipid, as white 
of egg, starch, gum ; but the greater part exhibit well marked 
tastes ; sweet, as sugar ; bitter, as quinine, morphine, strych- 
nine, gentian, quassia, soot, &c. ; sour, as acids generally ; 
pungent, as mustard, pepper, peppermint ; fiery, as alcohol. 

2. The Organ of Taste is the tongue, and the seat of 
sensibility is its upper surface. 

The upper surface of the tongue is seen to be covered with 
little projections called papillse. They are of three kinds, dis- 
tiuguished by size and form. The smallest and most numer- 
ous are conical or tapering, and cover the greatest part of the 
tongue, disappearing towards the base. The middle-sized are 
little rounded eminences scattered over the middle and fore 
part of the tongue, being most numerous towards the point. 
The large-sized are eight to fifteen in number, situated on the 
back of the tongue, and arranged in two rows at an angle like 
the letter V. The papillse contain capillary blood vessels 
and filaments of nerve, and are the seat of the sensibility of the 
toDgue. 

Two different nerves supply the tongue ; branches of the 
nerve called glosso-j^harj/ngeal (tongue and throat nerve) are 
distributed to the back part ; twigs of the Jifth pair (nerve of 
touch of the face) go to the fore-part. The effect, as will be 
seen, is a two-fold sensibility ; taste proper attaches to the 
first named nerve, the glosso-pharyngeal ; bitter is tasted 
chicfiy at the back of the tongue. Taken as a whole, the sen- 
si bihty of the tongue is distributed over the whole upper side, 
but less in the middle part and most in the base, sides, and 
tip. The relish of food increases from the tip to the back. 



TASTE IN SYMPATHY WITH DIGESTION. 37 

whicli is an inducement to keep the morsel moving backwards 
till it is finally swallowed. 

The indispensable condition of taste is solubility. Also 
the tongue must not be in a dry or parched condition. The 
sensibility is increased by a moderate pressure ; and is dead- 
ened by cold. 

ISTo explanation has yet been given of the mode of action 
on the nerves during taste. It is probably of a chemical 
nature, resulting from the combination of the dissolved food 
with a secretion from the blood-vessels of the papillse. 

3. The Sensations of Taste fall under a three-fold 
division : (1) those in direct sympathy with the Stomach, 
as Eelish ; (2) Taste proper, and (3) Touch. 

As to the first, there is an obvious continuity of structure 
in the Tongue and Alimentary canal, a common character of 
surface as regards mucous membrane, glands, and papilla. 
Moreover, apart from taste proper, the feeling in the tongue 
indicates at once whether a substance will agree or disagree 
with the stomach ; the tongue is in fact the stomach begun. 
And farther, what we call relish is distinct from taste ; butter 
and cooked flesh are relishes ; salt and quinine are tastes ; the 
one varies with the condition of the stomach, being in some 
states converted into nausea, as in sea-sickness ; the other re- 
mains under all variations of the digestive powe:^. 

4. The Tastes in sympathy with the Stomach are 
Relishes and Disgusts, 

Kelishes, as already explained, are the agreeable feelings 
arising from the kinds of food called savoury, as animal 
food, and the richer kinds of veg:e tables. Suf>'ar is both 
a relish and a taste. As a feeling of pleasure, a relish is more 
acute and less massive than the digestive sensations, but less 
acute and more massive than mere sweetness of taste. The 
speciality of the feeling is the alliance with digestion. What 
possesses relish may be hard to digest, but will not be nau- 
seous in the stomach. The strenp:th of this feelino^ is farther 
measured by its volitional urgency, or spur to the act of eat- 
ing. The intellectual persistence is not high. . 

Relishes imply their opposite, disgusts, in which the sto- 
machic sympathy is equally apparent, and which may be 
similarly characterized with reference to the corresponding 
digestive sensation. 
4 



38 SENSE OF TASTE. 

5. Taste proper comprehends Siveet and Bitter tastes. 

Sweetness is typified in the taste of sugar, to whose pre- 
sence is owing the sweetness of fruits and articles of food 
generally. This sensation may be called the proper pleasure 
of taste, or the enjoyment derivable through a favourable 
stimulus of the gustatory nerves. In Degree it is acate ; in 
Speciality we recognize it as possessing a character, inde- 
scribable in language, but not confounded with the pleasui-e 
of any other sense. Its volitional character accords with its 
nature as pleasure. It is more intellectual than Organic sen- 
sations generally, or than Relish ; we can discriminate its de- 
grees better, and remember it better. Taste may be the lowest 
of the five senses, as regards intellectual properties, but it is 
above the highest of the organic group. 

Bitter tastes are exemplified in quinine, gentian, bitter 
aloes, and soot. This, and not sourness, is the opposite of 
sweet ; it is the proper pain of taste, the state arising by irri- 
tating, or unfavourably stimulating, the gustatory nerve. The 
characteristics are the same, with obverse allowance, as for 
sweetness. 

6. In the third class of tastes, there is present an 
element arising through the nerves of Touch. Pungency 
is their prevailing character. They include the saline, 
alkaline^ sour or aciclj astringent, fiery, acrid. 

The saline taste is typified in common salt. It is neither 
sweet nor bitter, but simply pungent or biting; and, in all 
probability, the sensation is felt through the nerves of the fifth 
pair. In some salts, the pungency is combined with taste pro- 
per ; Epsom salts would be termed partly saline, and still 
more decidedly bitter. 

The alhaliiie taste, as in soda, potash, or ammonia, is a 
more energetic pungency, or more violent irritation of the 
nerves ; the pungency amounting to acute pain, as the action 
becomes destructive of the tissue. 

The sour or ac u;Z\;aste is the most familiar form of pungency, 
as in vinegar. The pain of an acid resembles a scald rather 
than a bitter taste. The pleasure derivable from it is such 
as belongs to pungency, and must observe the same limits. 

The astringent is a mild form of pungency ; it is exemplified 
by alum. The action in this case has manifestly departed from 
pure taste, and become a mere mechanical irrHation of the 
nerves of touch. Astringent substances cause r kind of shrink- 



OBJECTS OF SMELL. 39 

ing or contraction of the surface ; an effect imitated by the 
drying up of a solution of salt on the skin. What is called a 
^ rough' taste, as tannin, is a form of astringency. 

The fiery taste of mustard, alcohol, camphor, and volatile oils, 
is of the same generic character, although more or less mixed 
with taste proper. The acrid combines the fiery with the bitter. 



SENSE OF SMELL. 

1. The Sense of Smell, placed at the entrance of the 
lungs, is a source of pleasure and pain, and a means of 
discrimination as regards the air taken into the lungs. 

This sense is also in close proximity to the organ of Taste, 
with which smell frequently co-operates. 

2. The Oijects of smell are gaseous or volatile bodies, 
the greater number of such being odorous. 

The chief inodorous gases are the elements of the atmo- 
sphere, that is, nitrogen, oxygen, vapour of water, and carbonic 
acid ,(in the small amount contained in the air). Carbonic 
oxide, sulphurous acid, chlorine, iodine, the nitrous gases, 
ammonia, sulphuretted and phosphuretted hydrogen, and the 
vapour of acids generally, are odorous. The newly discovered 
ozone, is named from the odour it gives. Some minerals give 
forth odorous effluvia, as the garlic odour of arsenic, and the 
odour of a piece of quartz when broken. The vegetable king- 
dom is rich in odours ; many plants are distinguished by this 
single property. Animal odours are also numerous. 

The pleasant odours, chemically considered, are hydro- 
carbons ; they are composed chiefly of hydrogen and carbon. 
Such are alcohol and the ethers, eau de Cologne, attar of roses, 
and the perfumes generally. Of the repulsive and disagreeable 
odours, one class contain sulphur, as sulphuretted hydrogen. 
The worst-smelling substances yet discovei>;ed have arsenic for 
their base. Such are the kakodyle series of compounds dis- 
covered by Bunsen, from the study of a substance long known 
as ' liquor of Cadet.' The pungent odours are typified by 
ammonia ; nicotine, the element of the snuffs, is an analogous 
compound. 

3. The deaielopment of odours is favoured by Heat, and 
by Light. The'^action of Moisture is not uniform. 



40 SENSE OF SMELL. 

Heat operates by its volatilizing power, and by promoting 
decomposition. Light is a chemical influence. Moisture may 
dissolve solid matters and prepare the way for their being 
volatilized. 

4. The gaseous property, called diffusion, determines 
peculiar manifestations in odours. 

Some odours are light, and therefore diffuse rapidly, and 
rise high ; as sulphuretted hydrogen. The aromatic and 
spice odours, by their intensity and diffusibility combined, are 
smelt at great distances ; the Spice Islands of the Indian 
Archipelago are recognized far out at sea. The animal 
effluvia are mostly dense gases ; they are slowly diffused and 
do not rise high in the air. In scenting, a pointer dog keeps 
his nose close to the ground. Unwholesome effluvia, very 
strong on the ground, are unperceived at the height of a few 
feet. In tropical swamps, safety is obtained by sleeping at a 
height above the ground. 

5. The Organ of Smell is the nose, and the place of sen- 
sibility is the membrane that lines the interior and the 
complicated cavities branching out from it. 

The nose is lined throughout with a mucous membrane ; 
and the complicated bones adjoining it, give extension of sur- 
face to that membrane, whereby the sensibility is magnified. 
It is also an important fact, in the Anatomy of the organ, that 
the proper nerve of smell, called olfactory, is most copiously 
distributed in the interior recesses, and not at all near the 
entrance of the nostrils ; to which part, twigs of the fifth pair 
are distributed, conferring upon it a tactile sensibility. 

6. The 7)iode of action of odours appears to be a process 
of oxidation. 

The facts in favour of that view were pointed out bv 
Graham. Odorous substances in general are such as oxygen can 
readily act upon ; for example, sulphurous hydrogen, and the 
perfumes. Again, gases that have no smell are not acted on by 
oxygen at common temperatures ; the pure marsh gas, car- 
buretted hydrogen, which has no smell, has been obtained from 
deep mines, where it has been in contact with oxygen for 
geological ages. It is farther determined that unless a stream 
of oxygen passes through iho nose, there is no smell. 



FEESH ODOURS. — FEAG1L4INT ODOUKS. 41 

7. The Sensations of Smell are, iirst, those in sympathy 
with the Lungs ; secondly, those of Smell proper ; thirdly, 
those involving excitation of nerves of Touch. 

Those in sympathy with the Lungs may be described 
by the contrasting terms — fresh and close odours. 

Fresh odours are the feeHnQ:s of exhilaration from the 
quickened action of the lungs. Certain odorous substances 
have that quickening ef&cacy, as eau de Cologne, lavender, pep- 
permint, and many, but not all, perfumes ; the spirit used in 
dissolving the essences being not unfrequently the source of 
the stimulus. These are the substances used for reviving the 
sj^stem depressed by the atmosphere of a crowd. Freshness 
may, or may not, be joined with fragrance ; the odour of a 
tanyard is stimulating to the lungs ; the smell of a cow is fresh 
and sweet. Musk is probably stimulating. 

Close or suffocating odours arise from a depressed action 
of the lungs. The effluvia of crowds, and of vegetable and 
animal decay, the deficiency of oxygen, and the accumulation 
of carbonic acid, however caused, lower the powers of life, and 
are accompanied with a depressing sensation, which should 
properly be called a sensation of the lungs, but which we con- 
nect also with smell. The smell of a pastry-cook's kitchen is 
close and yet sweet. 

Certain odours, as sulphuretted hydrogen, are nauseous or 
disgusting, w^hich implies a sympathy with the stomach, 
although in what mode, or through what nerves, is not clear. 

8. Connected with proper olfactory sensibility are 
fragrant odours and their ojoposites. 

Eor sweet or fragrant odours we refsr to the rose, the violet, 
the orange, the jasmine, &c. In them we have the proper plea- 
sure of the organ of smell ; the enjoyment derivable through 
the olfactory nerves. It is acute or massive, according to the 
concentration or diffusion of the material ; compare an 
essence, as lavender, or rosemary, with a bed of mignonette 
or a field of clover. A certain degree of what is termed re- 
finement attaches to the pleasures of pure smell ; the stimulus 
is so gentle that it can be endured for a length of time without 
palling. 

The opposite of sweetness is given in the expressive name 
stinh ; a milder substitute is malodour. The smell of assafoe- 
tida is an example ; some of our repulsive odours are in part 
disgusting, and do not represent pure olfactory pain. Va- 



42 SENSE OF SMELL. 

lerian, rag-wort, and the scam of stagnant marsh (squeezed 
in the fingers) give forth malodours. Whenever the olfactory- 
nerves are painfully irritated, this is the character of the pain. 
Amid many distinguishable varieties of bad smell, there is a 
common type of sensation. 

9. Throuo'h excitation of the nerves of touch we derive 
the pungeiit odours. 

Ammonia (as in smelling salts), nicotine, mustard, acetic 
acid, give rise to a sharp stinging sensation, for which the best 
name is jpungency. It is most probably a mechanical irritation 
of the nerves of the fifth pair ; habitual snuff-takers lose the 
pure olfactory sensibility. The general effect, named pungency, 
is a mode of nervous and mental excitement ; within limits, it 
gives pleasure. A loud sound, a flash of light, a hurried pace, 
have a rousing effect, pleasurable, if the nerves are fresh and 
unoccupied, painful otherwise. 

The ethereal odours, as alcohol and the aroma of wines, are 
partly fresh and sweet, and partly pungent. 

There are odours that we may call acrid, combining pun- 
gency with ill smell, as the odour of coal-gas works. 

The sensual appetites are, in many cases, fired by odours. 
The smell of flesh excites the carnivorous appetite ; which may 
be due partly to association, and partly to that sympathy of 
smell w^ith digestion, shown in the nauseous odours. Sexual 
excitement, in some animals, is induced by smell, as by many 
other sensations. There is here a general law, that one great 
pleasure fires the other pleasurable sensibilities. (See Tender 
Emotion.) 

Some sapid bodies are also odorous. In the act of expira- 
tion accompanying mastication, especially the instant after 
swallowing, the odorous particles are carried into the cavities 
of the nose, and affect the sense of smell. This is flavour. 
Cinnamon has no taste, but only a flavour ; that is, an odour 
brouQ^ht out during mastication. 

Viewing Smell in the Intellectual point of view, once for 
all, we find it considerably in advance of Organic Sensibility, 
if not of Tasto also. The power of discrimination exercised 
by smell is very great ; we derive much instruction and 
guidance by means of it. Yet higher in this respect is its 
development in many animals, as the ruminants, certain of 
ihc pachydermatous animals, and, above all, the carnivorous 
quadrupeds. The scent of the dog seems miraculous. 

The power of recollection is usually in proportion to the 



THE SKIN. 43 

aptitude for discrimination ; and in regard to smells, the 
power of recollecting is considerable. We can, by an effort, 
restore to mind the sweetness of a rose, the pungency of 
smelling salts, or the bouquet of an essence. 

SENSE OF TOUCH. 

1. As an intellectual, or knowledge-giving sense, Touch 
ranks decidedly above Taste and Smell. 

The Objects of Touch are principally solid substances. 

Gases do not affect the touch, unless blown with great 
violence. Liquids give little or no feeling, except heat or 
cold. A certain firmness of surface is necessary, such as con- 
stitutes solidity, 

2. The sensitive Organ is the skin, or common integu- 
ment of the body, together with the interior of the mouth, 
the tongue, and the nostrils. 

The parts of the skin are its two layers — ^cuticle and true 
skin ; the papillsB ; the hairs and the nails ; the two species of 
glands — the one yielding sweat, the other an oily secretion ; 
with blood vessels and nerves. 

The cuticle is the protective covering of the skin, being 
itself insensible ; it varies in thickness from the ^^-^ to the yg" 
of an inch ; being thickest on the soles of the feet, and on the 
palms of the hands. The true sJcin lying underneath, and 
containing the papillce, nerves, and blood-vessels, is the sen- 
tient structure. It is marked in various places by furrows, 
also affecting the cuticle, as may be seen in the skin of the 
hand. The jpa^illce are small conical projections, besetting 
the whole surface of the skin, but largest and closest on the 
palm of the hand and fingers, and on the sole of the foot. 
Their height on the hand is from -^^^ to j J-^- of an inch. Into 
them blood-vessels enter, and also nerves ; and they are the 
medium of the tactile sensibility of the skin. The two sets of 
glands concern the skin as a great purifying organ. Very 
small muscular fibres have been discovered in the skin ; they 
are easily affected by cold, and their contraction makes the 
shivering of the skin. 

3. The action in Touch is simple pressure. 

The contact of a firm body compresses the skin, and, 
through it, the nerve filaments embedded in the papillae. 



44 SENSE OF TOUCH. 

4. The Sensations of Touch may be arranged under the 
following heads : — the Emotional, and the Intellectual 
sensations of Touch proper ; and the sensations combining 
Touch and ]\Iuscnlarity. 

The first chiss includes soft Toitchcs, 'puncjcnt smarts, 
teynioerature, and some others. 

Soft Touches. In these we suppose the gentle contact of 
some extended surface with the skin, as the under clothing, 
or the bed clothes. From such contact, results a pleasurable 
sensation, of little acuteness, but of considerable mass, when 
a large surface is afiected. In most instances of pleasurable 
contact, there is warmth combined with touph, as in the em- 
brace of two creatures of the warm blooded species, or in the 
contact of one part of the body with another. We become 
insensible to the habitual contact of our clothing, on the 
general principle of ilelativity ; but the transition to, or from, 
the naked state makes us aware of our sensibility to touch. 

The mixed sensation of contact and warmth is strongly 
manifested in the clinging of the young to the mother, both 
in the human species and in the inferior tribes. The warm 
contact is maintained with great energy of will. It also de- 
termines many of the peculiar modes of expression in human 
beings ; as the putting of the finger or the hand to the 
mouth and face, either as mere sensuous luxury, or as a 
solace in pain. In luxurious repose, a soft warm contact is 
desiderated for the hands. 

Fiiiif/ent and painful sensations of Touch. A sharp, intense, 
smarting contact with the skin, produces, up to a certain point, 
an agreeable pungency or excitement ; beyond that, an acute 
pain of the physical class. This is precisely analogous to the 
effects of pungency spoken of under the foregoing Senses. 
Mere sensation, as such, is pleasurable within limits, when 
the nerves are fresh. Excitement is joyful to the unexpended 
nervous vigour ; and this is gained by pungency. 

The acute pains of the skin are illustrated in the discipliue 
of the whip ; a form of pain supposed to have both volitional 
efficiency at the moment, and intellectual persistency for the 
future. 

Sensations of Temjjerature. We included the feelings of 
heat and cold among organic sensations. They are, in the 
vast majority of instances, connected with the skin, of whose 
sensibility they are a large and important item. The effect of 
changes of temperature on the nerves may still be mechanical, 



INTELLECTUAL SENSATIONS OF TOUCH. 45 

seeing that the direct influence of sucli changes is to expand 
or contract the tissue. Some have supposed special nerves of 
heat and cold, but without good evidence. The pleasures and 
pains from this source have been sufficiently characterized. 

The intellectual aspect of the sense of Temperature deserv^es 
mention. The power of discrimination has been estimated by 
Weber, and is found the same at high and at low tempera- 
tures ; we can distinguish 14° from M°.4 Reaumur, as well as 
30° from 30°.4 ; this amounts to discerning a difference of about 
1"^ Fahrenheit. The order of sensitiveness of the parts is as 
follows ; — tip of the tongue, eyelids, lips, neck, trunk : this is 
nearly, but not exactly, the order of sensitiveness to tactile 
sensation. 

Other painful sensations of the sldn. The organic sensi- 
bility of the skin gives rise to a variation of sensations ; its 
healthy condition is an element in our physical comfort, and 
obversely. Long compression of the same part, by checking the 
circulation and affecting the nerves, occasions a massive un- 
easiness. Fretting, chafing, pulling the hairs, tearing open the 
nails, bring on acute pains. 

Another peculiar sensation of the skin is Tickling. On this, 
Weber remarks, that the lips, the walls of the nasal openings, and 
the face generally, when touched with a feather, give the peculiar 
sensation of tickling, which continues till the part is rubbed by the 
hand. In the nose, the irritation leads at last to sneezing. The 
excitation extends to the ducts of the glands, which pour out their 
contents, and increase the irritation. The violent sensation pro- 
duced by bodies in contact with the eye, is of the nature of tick- 
ling accompanied by flow from, the glands, and readily passing into 
pain. Why some places are liable to this sensation and others not, 
it is difficult to explain. The possession of delicate tactual dis- 
crimination is not necessary to the effect. 

5. The Intellectual sensations of Touch proper are 
Plurality of points and Pressure. 

Plurality of points. One great feature in the intellectual 
superiority of Touch, is the separateness of the sensations on 
different parts of the skin. The points of a two-pronged fork 
resting on the hand are noted as giving a double sensation ; 
whereas in smell, there is no sense of plurality ; there may be 
a sense of increase or diminution of degrees, but the whole 
effect is one and continuous. 

Very remarkable inequalities in the degree of this dis- 
crimination are observable on comparing different parts of the 
body. The experiments for determining these (first instituted 



46 SENSE OF TOUCH. 

by Weber) consists in placing the two points of a pair of com- 
passes, blunted with sealing wax, at different distances 
asunder, and in various directions, upon different parts of the 
body. It is then found that the smallest distance, for giving 
the sense of double contact, varies from the thirty-sixth of an 
inch to three inches. In Weber's observations the range was 
the twenty- fourth of an inch to two and a half inches. The 
part most sensitive is the tip of the tongue ; according to 
AYeber, the smallest interval of doubleness is -^-^ of an inch. 

The interval of plurality varies according to the following cir- 
cumstances. (1) It is greater across than along any of the limbs ; 
across the middle of the arm or fore-arm it is two inches, along 
the arm, three. (2) It is greater when the surfaces vary in struc- 
ture, as the inner and outer surface of the lips. (3) If one of the 
points is pressed forcibly, the other ceases to be distinguished. 
(4) Two points, at a great distance apart, on a surface of greater 
sensibility, are judged to be more widely apart. This will be 
shown by drawing compasses over the different parts ; they will 
seem to widen in the most sensitive organs. The tongue exag- 
gerates holes in the teeth. (5) By moving the points, instead of 
keeping them still, the sensitiveness is greater ; an interval felt 
single at rest, may feel double under motion. In the tactile dis- 
crimination of a surface, we usually move the hand. 

Whenever two points produce a double sensation, we may 
imagine that one point Hes on the area supplied by one distinct 
nerve, while the other point lies on the area of a second nerve. 
There is a certain stage of subdivision or branching of the nerves 
of touch, beyond which the impressions are fused into one on 
reaching the cerebrum. How many ultimate nerve fibres are con- 
tained in each unit nerve, we cannot pretend to guess ; but on the 
skin of the back, the middle of the thigh, and the middle of the 
fore-arm, an area of three inches diameter, or between six and 
seven square inches, is supplied by the filaments of a single unit. 
On the point of the finger, the units are so multiplied, that each 
supplies no more than a space whose diameter is the tenth of an 
inch. Such units correspond to the entire body of the olfactory 
or gustatory nerve ; for these nerves give but one undivided im- 
pression for the whole affected. If we had two different organs 
of smell, and two distinct olfactory nerves, we should then pro- 
bably have a feeling of doubleness or repetition of smells, like the 
sense of two points on the skin. 

Sensation of Pressure. When a contact amounts to a 
certain energy of compression, we have a sensation passing 
beyond mere touch. Muscular resistance apart, there is 
a feeling induced by the compi^ession of the deep-seated 
parts together with the skin. It is a neutral feeling, 
unless carried to the pitch of acute pain ; but as we are 



TOUCH COMBINED WITH MUSCULARITY. 47 

intellectually conscious of its various degrees, it is a help ix) 
our perception of meclianical forces. 

The discrimination of pressure is obtained free from the 
muscular discrimination, by supporting the hand on a table, 
and putting weights upon it. In this way, Weber found that 
the tips of the fingers could discriminate between 20 oz. and 
19*2 oz.; and the forearm 20 oz. from 18*7 oz. This discrimi- 
nation does not increase in proportion to the abundance of the 
nervous filaments supplied to the part, 

6. The third class of Sensations of Touch are those 
combining touch with muscular feeling. They include 
resistance, iveiglit, and pressure; hardness and softness; 
roughness and smoothness; and the various modes of Eoo- 
tension, 

Besistance^ Weight, and Pressure, These, as already shown, 
are primarily connected with muscular energy ; a greater 
weight induces a greater muscular expenditure. We have 
just seen, however, that the compression of the skin and sub- 
jacent parts is also a clue to the same property. But the 
muscular discrimination surpasses the tactile at least in a 
threefold degree : and what is of more consequence, the 
muscular or active consciousness is what constitutes to us 
the property of weight, pressure, or force. The feeling of 
compression of the hand or limb is of itself a subjective sen- 
sation, and might be confounded with mere subjective pains, 
as in hurts. The feeling of expended energy is unambiguous 
and decisive ; it means to us the objective fact of mechanical 
force, the fundamental consciousness that we call matter. 

Hardness and Softness. We appreciate these qualities also 
by the combined sensibility to pressure. The degree of resis- 
tance to change of form is the degree of hardness. The nice 
discrimination of this property enters into various manual pro- 
cesses, as the art of the pastry-cook, the builder, the sculptor, 
&c. We must still consider it as mainly residing in the mus- 
cular tissue, which, according to its nervous endowments, may 
be unequally developed among individuals, in respect of 
discrimination. Elasticity is a mere variety of hardness and 
softness ; it means the varying resistance, together with the 
rebound of the body compressed. 

Roughness and Smoothness are referable, in the first in- 
stance, to the sense of plurality of points. The finger resting 
on the face of a brush gives the feeling of a plurality of pricks, 



48 SENSE OF TOUCH. 

and we can judge whether these are few and scattered, 
or whether they are numerous and close, up to the pomt 
where they become too close for the sensibility of the 
part. We can thus discriminate between a coarse pile and 
finer one. But by moving the finger, according to a principle 
already laid down, we increase the power of discrimination. 
A third means is the organic sensibility to chafing, which is 
greater as a surface is rougher; this brings in the pecu- 
liarity of sharpness or bluntness of the asperities ; it applies 
accurately to the operation of polishing, where the purpose is 
to do away with all asperities. In discerning the qualities of 
woven textures, softness and smoothness are taken tojrether ; 
and there are great individual differences of tactual delicacy, 
natural or acquired, in that discernment. The fineness of a 
powder, and the beat of a pulse, are judged of almost exclu- 
sively by skin sensibility. 

These tactile sensations, whose importance consists in the 
intellectual property of discrimination, have also a corres- 
ponding retentiveness. We can recall and compare ideas of 
touch, we can imagine or construct new ones, although with 
less facility and vividness than in the case of sights. With 
the blind, whose external world is a world of touch, this 
memory attains a much higher compass. 

Extension^ Form, &c. — It has been already laid down that 
Extension, the most general property of the object world, is 
based on our consciousness of muscular energy, and not on any 
mode of passive sensation. Still, our two senses — Touch and 
sight, play an important part in the development of the notion, 
which is highly complex, and not a simple or elementary 
feeling, like mere resistance. 

The purely muscular part of the feeling or idea of Exten- 
sion is unresisted movement, as in the sweep of the arm, or 
the forward movement of the body, in free space. It has been 
seen that we have a discrimination of the duration and the 
pace of these unobstructed movements. But the power oi 
measuring degrees and of making comparisons is aided by 
touch (and by sight), and that in various ways. (1) In the 
first place, Touch (or the mixed sensation of touch and resist 
nnce) supplies definite marks to indicate the beginning and 
the end of the sweep, as in estimating the width of a door- 
way by the hand, or the dimensions of a room by walking 
across it. Extension is the antithesis of resistance or ob- 
structed movement, and is felt by the presence of its contrast, 
and this involves contact or touch. The only real notion that 



THE CO-EXISTING IN SPACE. 49 

we can ever form of extension, as empty space, is a sweep 
between two resistances ; infinite space, where the points, 
or termini, of resistance are done away with, is therefore an 
incompetent, irrelevant, impossible conception ; it does not 
comply with the conditions indispensable to the notion. (2) 
In the second place, when the hand is moved over a surface, 
the feeling of continaance of movement is accompanied with 
a continuance of tactile sensation, and the estimate of the 
two jointly is more exact than of one singly. A feeling of 
the subject (touch proper) is superadded to a feeling of the 
object (expended energy, as movement) and deepens the im- 
press of that sensibility without constituting itself the objective 
basis. (3) In the third place, movement in vacuo is unable 
to indicate the vital difference between succession and co- 
existence — time and space. Now, co-existence in space is 
implied in our matured idea of extension. Bat this co- 
existence is the result of a peculiar experience, and to 
that experience the senses must contribute. When we move 
the hand over a fixed surface, we have, together with feelings 
of movement, a succession of feelings of touch ; if the surface is 
a variable one, as when a blind man reads with the hand, the 
sensations are constantly changing, and are recognized as a 
definite series. Repeat the movement, and the series is re- 
peated ; invert the movement, and the series appears in an 
inverted order. Now this continuance of a fixed serial order 
marks something different from mere continuing movement 
by itself, which gives no element of fixity or persistence. A 
person looking on while a procession passes by, is differently 
affected from another person walking up and dowm by the 
side of the same body standing still. Such is the difference 
between time and space, as appreciated by combined move- 
ment and sensation. Time or succession is the simpler fact ; 
co-existence, or extension in space, is a complex fact ; and the 
serial fixedness of sensations is one element of the complication. 
Extension is recognized by us as linear, superficial, or 
solid ; the difference being one of complexity. Linear ex- 
tension nearly corresponds to a simple sweep of the arm ; the 
straight direction, however, demands a muscular adjustment. 
Superficial extension, as in a pane of glass, involves cross 
movements in addition. Cubical extension is merely a higher 
stage of complication. We are capable not only of the mus- 
cular groupings requisite for these three grades of extension, 
but of discriminating one grouping from another ; a short line 
from a longer, an oblong from a square, and so on ; and we 



50 SENSE OF TOUCH. 

are farther capable of retaining or laying up abiding impres- 
sions corresponding to each. We can retain, and recall, the 
muscular movements, groupings, and adjustments, deter- 
mined in our tactual examination of a one foot cube ; sacli a 
cube means to us (sight apart) a series of touches imbedded 
in a series of muscular feelings. 

Our having two hands, and five fingers in each, gives us 
another, and shorter, clue to surface and solidity. The out- 
spread hand with its plurality of touches is a means of dis- 
tinguishing surface, enhanced by the use of both hands. In 
like manner, solidity can be perceived by the clench of (me hand 
on two surfaces, or still better, by combining both hands. 
The sense of solidity gained by combining the hands is 
parallel to the solid effect in vision from the two eyes. 

Size, Distance, Direction, Situation, and Form, are merely 
modes of Extension ; they are all muscular experiences 
aided by sense. Size or magnitude is merely another name 
for extension. Distance is extension between two points. 
Direction, mathematically taken, is measurement of distance 
from some standard of reference. The primitive reference is to 
our own body ; and direction consists in the specific move- 
ments of the difierent members — the putting forth of the right 
arm or the left, the throwing the hand or body forwards or 
backwards, up or down. Situation is distance and direction 
combined. Form is the successive positions of the outline ; 
we acquire definite movements corresponding to the difierent 
forms — a straight line, a circle, an oval, a sphere, a cube, 
and embody our recollection of these in ideal movements or 
muscular feelings, with tactile accompaniments. 

Thus, in the knowledge of Extension, and its modes, 
through touch and locomotion, there is already a vast and 
complicated mass of acquirements, involving a large number 
of muscles and an immense apparatus of connecting nerves. 

The observations made on persons born blind have furnished 
a means of judging how far touch can substitute sight, both in 
mechanical and in intellectual operations. These observations 
have shown, that there is nothing essential to the highest intel- 
lectual processes of science and thought, that may not be attained 
in the absence of sight. The integrity of the moving apparatus 
of the frame renders it possible to acquire the fundamental 
notions of space, magnitude, figure, force, and movement, and 
through these to comprehend the great leading facts of creation, 
as taught in mathematical, mechanical, or physical science. 



PAETS OF THE EAR. 51 



SENSE OF HEARING. 



1. The Ohjecis of hearing are material bodies in a state 
of tremour or vibration, from being struck ; which tremour 
affects the air, and thence the ear. 

Hard and elastic textures are the most sonorous. The 
metals rank first ; next, are woods, stones, and earthy bodies. 
Liquids and gases sound feebly, unless impinged by solids. 
The howling and the rustling of the wind are its play upon the 
earth's surface, like the ^olian harp. * In the cataract, water 
impinges water ; and, in the thunder, air is struck by air. 

2. The Ear, the Organ of hearing, is divisible into (1) 
the External ear, (2) the Tympanum or Middle ear, and (3) 
the Labyrinth, or Internal ear. 

The two first divisions are appendages or accessories of 
the third, which contains the sentient surface. 

The Outer ear includes the wing of the ear — augmenting 
the sound by reflexion, and the passage of the ear, which is 
closed at the inner end by the membrane of the tympanum. 

The Middle ear, or Tympanum, is a narrow irregular 
cavity, extending to the labyrinth, and communicating with 
the throat, through the Eustachian tube. It contains a chain 
of small bones, stretching from the inner side of the membrane 
of the tympanum to an opening in the labyrinth ; there are 
also certain very minute muscles attached to these bones. The 
inner wall of the tympanum, which is the outer wall of the 
labyrinth, is an even surface of bone, but chiefly noted for two 
openings — the oval and the round — both closed with mem- 
brane. It is to the oval opening that the inner end of the 
chain of bones, the stirrup bone, is applied. Of the muscles, 
the largest is attached to the outer bone of the chain (the 
malleus), and is called tensor tympani, because its action is to 
draw inwards, and tighten, the tympanum. Two or three 
other muscles are named, but their action is doubtful. 

The Internal ear, or Labyrinth, contained in the petrous ov 
hard portion of the temporal bone, is made up of two struc- 
tures, the bony and the membranous labyrinth. The bony 
labyrinth presents externally a spiral shell called the cochlea, 
and three projecting rings called the semicircular canals. The 
interior is hollow, and filled with a clear liquid secreted from,, 
a thin lining membrane. It contains a membranous structure, 



52 SENSE OF HEARING. 

corresponding in shape to the tortuosities of the bony laby- 
rinth, hence called the membranous labyrinth ; this structure 
encloses a Hquid secretion, and supports the ramifications of 
the auditory nerve. 

3. The mode of action, in hearing, is the ultimate com- 
pression of the filaments of the nerve of hearing, by the 
compression of the liquid contents of the labyrinth. The 
ear is thus a very delicate organ of touch. 

The waves of sound, entering the outer ear, strike the 
membrane of the tympanum, and make it vibrate. These 
vibrations are communicated to the chain of bones ; and the 
last of the chain — the stirrup bone, gives a corresponding series 
of beats to the tight membrane of the oval opening, the result 
of v^hich is a series of condensations of the liquid contents, 
and compressions of the auditory nerve ; these compressions 
propagated to the brain are connected with the sensation of 
sound. An experimental imitation of the mechanism has 
shown that the arrangement answers well for delicate hearing; 
the surface best adapted for receiving aerial beats is a stretched 
membrane ; which membrane imparts these most advantage- 
ously to a solid rod ; and between a solid rod and the auditory 
nerve the most suitable medium is a liquid. The intensity 
and the rapidity of the nerve compressions are exactly in ac- 
cordance with the aerial waves. Our greatest diflB.culty is to 
understand how a single rod can be the medium of a large 
volume or plurality of sounds ; we must suppose them taken 
in succession by an extraordinary rapidity of the vibrating 
action. Attempts have been made to allocate the different 
degrees of pitch to different parts of the labyrinth, and thence 
to distinct nervous filaments. 

It has not been completely ascertained on what occasions, and 
with what effect, the tensor tympani muscle is brought into play. 
It was observed by Wollaston, that when the membrane is stretched 
the ear is less affected by grave sounds, as thunder or cannon, and 
more sensitive to shrill sounds, as the rattling of carriages or 
the creakinf^^ of paper. Hence the action of the tensor tympani 
muscle would be protective against painfully grave sounds, and 
obversely. 

4. The Sensations of Sound may be divided into three 
heads : — (1) The General Emotional effects of sound ; (2) 
Musical sounds; and (3) the Intellectual sensations. 

The General efl^ects of sound may be considered under 



' EMOTIONAL SExNSATIOISS OF SOUiJD. 53 

Quality (pleasant and painful), Intensity^ and Volume or 
Quantity. 

Sweetness, The terms sweet, rich, mellow, silver j, are 
applied to the pleasing sensations of sound, pure and simple. 
Certain materials, instruments, and voices, by their mere 
tone, please and charm the ear ; while some are indifferent, 
and others have a grating, harsh effect. The structural 
peculiarities connected with these differences are still a matter 
of conjecture. From the analogy of touch, we may suppose 
that a gentle stimulation of the nerves of hearing is plea- 
surable, and the admixture of violent impulses painful. Another 
circumstance is assigned by Helmholtz — namely, purity or 
singleness of tone, instead of discordant variety. 

The character of sweet sounds generally is acute pleasure, 
as we might expect from an organ small and sensitive. While 
the emotional and volitional peculiarities are sufficiently im- 
plied in this designation, a remark must be made on the intel- 
lectual property of the pleasures of sound. We are now ap- 
proaching, if we have not reached, the top of the scale in this 
respect ; the pleasures of hearing, taken as a whole, are more 
endurable, more persistent, and more easily revived in idea, 
than any other sensible pleasures, except sights. 

Inteyisity, Loudness. Any sound, not too loud, may be 
agreeable solely as stimulus, without giving the acute pleasure 
above described. A certain pitch of loudness amounts to 
pungency of sensation, mere excitement, which is grateful 
under the circumstances already noticed, namely, unexhausted 
nervous irritability. A certain coarse pleasure is given to 
robust natures and to children by loud noise, as by any other 
kind of exciting stimulus. Beyond these limits, loudness of 
sound passes into acute pain, and is a cause of nervous ex- 
haustion ; as in. the screeching of a parrot-menagerie, the 
shrill barking of dogs, the screaming of infants, the railway 
whistle. The mental discomposure is greater when they are 
sudden and unexpected. 

Volume or Quantity, Acute as is the general character of 
hearing as a sense, we may have effects that are by compari- 
son voluminous. This happens when the sound comes from 
a sounding mass of large surface or extent ; for example, the 
shout of a great multitude, the weaves of the many- sounding 
sea, the thunder, or the wind. The multiplication of sound 
is more agreeable than the augmented intensity ; the stimulus 
is increased without adding to the nervous fatigue. Apart 



54 S-ENSE OF HEARING. 

from intrinsic sweetness and music, the greatest pleasures of 
sound are derived from voluminous effects. 

5. Musical Sounds involve the properties of Piicli, 
Waxing and Waning, Harmony and Discord, 

Pitch, or Tone, This is the fundamental property of musical 
sounds. 

By pitch is meant the acuteness or graveness of the sound, as 
determined by the ear ; aiiid this is found to depend on the rapidity 
of vibration of the sounding body, or the number of vibrations 
performed in a given time. Most ears can mark a difference be- 
tween two sounds differing in acuteness or pitch; those that 
cannot do so, to a minute degree, are incapable of music. The 
gravest sound audible to the human ear is stated, by the generality 
of experimenters, at 20 vibrations per second ; the limit of acute- 
ness is various for different individuals, the highest estimate is 
73,000 vibrations in the second. The cry of a bat is so acute as to 
pass out of the hearing of many persons. The extreme audible 
range would amount to between nine and ten octaves. 

A musical note is sweeter than an unmusical sound ema- 
nating from the same source. The explanation maybe partly 
its purity, and partly its containing already an element of 
harmony, in the equal timing of the beats. 

Waxing and Waning of sound. The charm of this pe- 
culiar effect, resembling the waxing and waning of move- 
ments (p. 23), is well known. ' That music hath a dying 
fall.' The moaning of the wind exemplifies it. The skilful 
singer knows how to turn it to account. In some kinds of 
pathetic oratory, it degenerates into the whine or sing-song. 

Harmony and Discord. When a plurality of sounds concur, 
there may be harmony, discord, or mere indifference. 

Harmony is known to aiise from the proportions of the rates of 
vibration of musical sounds ; 1 to 2 (octave), 2 to 3 (fifth), 3 to 4 
(fourth), and so on, up to a certain point, when the harmony fades 
away into discord. The harmonious adjustment of rounds in 
succession (melody), and in concurrence (harmony proper), is 
musical composition, to which are added other effects of Time, 
Emphasis, &c. The pleasures of harmony are well known, but 
they somewhat transcend the simple sensations, and trench upon 
the sphere of the higher emotions, under which some farther notice 
will be taken of them. 

6. The more Intellectual sensations of sound are prin- 
cipally those connected with perceiving Articidatencis, 



INTELLECTUAL SENSATIONS OF SOUND. 65 

Distance, and Direction, Eeference may also be made to 
Clearness and Timbre. 

Clearness, This is another name for purity, and implies that 
a sound should stand out distinct, instead of being choked 
and encumbered with confusing ingredients. Both the plea- 
sure of music, and the perception of meaning, are involved in 
the clearness of the sounds. We have already surmised that 
the primitive sweetness of sounds may be involved with their 
purity, and so with their clearness; silver and glass are re- 
markable for both the sweetness and the purity of their tones. 

Timhre, Complexion, or Quality. Different materials, in- 
struments, and voices, although uttering the same note, with 
the same intensity, yet affect the ear differently, so as to be 
recognized as distinct. This is called the timhre or speciality 
of the instrument. Certain experiments made by Helmholtz 
profess to explain this difference, and, along with it, the differ- 
ence of vowel quality in articulate sounds. 

Articulate sounds. The discrimination of these is the 
foundation of speech. 

The consonants in general are distinguished through the 
characteristic shock given by them severally to the ear. The 
hissing sound of s, the burring of r, the hum of m^ are well marked 
modes of producing variety of effect. We can understand how 
each should impart a different kind of shock to the nerve of hear- 
ing. So we can see a reason for distinguishing the abrupt sounds 
p, t, Jc, from the continuous or vocal sounds h, d, and g, and from 
the same sounds with the nasal accompaniment vi, 7i, ng. It is 
not quite so easy to explain the distinction of shock between the 
labials, dentals, and gutturals ; still, if we compare p (labial), 
with k (guttural), we can suppose that the stroke that gives the 
k is in some way harder than the other. 

Much greater difficulty attaches to the vowel sounds, which 
differ only in the mode of opening the mouth while the sound is 
emitted. Helmholtz lays it down, as the result of numerous ex- 
periments, that vowel sounds contain, besides the ground-tone, a 
number of upper-tones, or by-tones, with double, triple, &c., the 
number of vibrations of the ground-tone ; and are distinguished, 
or have their peculiar character, according to the nature of the 
accompaniments in each case. Willis and Cag^niard-Latour con- 
trived modes of producing vowel sounds artificially ; and Helm- 
holtz, by making specific combinations of various simple tones, 
imitated all the vowel articulations. 

When the ground-tone is heard alone, the sound has the 
character of u (full). The o has, along with the ground-tone, the 
next octave audibly combined. The a (ah) is characterized by the 
marked presence of the very high octaves. 



56 SENSE OF IIEAKING. 

Distance, This is judged of entirely by intensity, and is 
ascertainable only for known sounds. Tiie same sound is 
feebler as it is remote, and we infer accordingly. AVhere we 
have no opportunities of comparing a sound at different kno^vn 
distances, our judgment is at fault, as with the thunder, and 
with the roar of cannon. It being an effect of distance to 
make sounds fade away into a feeble hum, if we encounter 
a sound whose natural quality is feeble, as the humming of the 
bee, we are ready to imagine it more distant than it is. 

Direction, We have no primitive sense of direction ; it is 
an acquired perception, based on our discrimination of the in- 
tensity and the clearness of sounds. In certain positions of the 
head, the same sound is stronger than in others ; the direction 
most favourable being no doubt the straightest, or the line of 
the passage of the outer ear. 

Let us consider first the case of listening with a single 
ear. When the turning of the head makes a sound less loud 
and distinct, w^e conclude that it has passed out of the direct 
line of the ear, or a direction at right angles to that side of 
the head. When another movement brmgs it into greater 
distinctness, we conclude that it was at first away from that 
direction. 

The combined action of the two ears materially aids the 
perception. The concurrence of the greatest possible effect 
on the right ear with the least on the left ear, is a token that 
the sound is on our right hand ; an equal effect on both ears 
shows it to be before or behind. At best, the sense of direc- 
tion of sounds is not delicate. We cannot easily find out a 
skylark in the air from its note ; nor can we tell the precise 
spot of a noise in a large apartment. 

SENSE OF SiailT. 

1. The Objects of Sight are nearly all material bodies. 

Bodies at a certain high temperature are self-luminous ; 
as flame, red-hot iron, &c. ; the celestial lights being supposed 
analagous. Other bodies, as the greater number of terrestrial 
surfaces, the moon and the planets, are visible only by re- 
flexion from such as are self-luminous. 

2. The Organ of Sight, the Eye, is a compound optical 
lense in communication with a sensitive surface. 



COATS OF THE EYE-BALL. 57 

Besides tlie structures composing the globe of the eye, there 
are various important accessory parts. The eye-hrows are thick 
arched ridges, surmounting the orbit, and acted on by muscles, so 
as to constitute part of the expression of the face. The eye-lids 
are the two thin moveable folds that screen the eye ; the upper is 
the larger and more moveable, having a muscle for the purpose. 
The length of the opening varies in different persons, and gives 
the appearance of a large or a small eye. The lids are close to the 
ball at the outer angle ; but a small red body (lachrymal caruncle) 
intervenes at the inner angle ; and near this body the lachrymal 
ducts pierce both eye-lids. The lachrymal apparatus consists of (1) 
the gland for secreting the tears at the upper corner of the outer 
side of the orbit; (2) the two canals for receiving the fluid in the 
inner side of the orbit ; and (3) the sac, with the duct continued 
from it, through which the tears pass to the nose. The tears are 
secreted by the lachrymal gland, and poured out from the eye-lids 
upon the eye-ball; the washings afterwards running into the lach- 
rymal sac, and thence away by the nose. 

The globe or ball of the eye is placed in the fore-part of the 
cavity of the orbit ; it is fixed there by the optic nerve behind, 
and by the muscles with the eye-lids in front, but with freedom 
to change its position. The form of the ball is round but irregular, 
as if a small piece were cut off from a larger ball, and a segment 
of a smaller laid on; the smaller segment is the projecting trans- 
parent part seen in front. Except under certain influences, the 
two eye^ look nearly in the same direction ; otherwise expressed 
by saying, their axes are nearly parallel. 

The eye-ball consists of three investing membranes, making up 
the shell, and of three transparent masses, called its humours, 
which constitute it an optic lense. External to it in front, is a thin 
transparent membrane called the conjunctiva, a mere appendage 
arising out of the continuation of the lining mucous membrane 
of the eye -lids. The red streaks in the white of the eye are its 
blood-vessels. 

The outer investing membrane or tunic is called the sclerotic, 
and is a strong, opaque, unyielding fibrous structure ; on it depend 
the shape and the firmness of the ball. It extends over the v/hole 
of the larger sphere to the junction of the smaller in front. Its con- 
tinuation, or substitute, in the clear bulging part of the eye is the 
cornea, which is equally firm, but transparent. The sclerotic is 
about four-fifths of the shell ; the cornea, one-fifth. 

Next the sclerotic is the clioroid coat, a membrane of a black or 
deep brown colour, lining the chamber of the eye ujj to the union 
of the sclerotic and cornea. It is composed of various layers. 
Outside are two layers of capillary blood-vessels, veins and arteries. 
Inside is the layer containing the black pigment, which it is the 
object of the numerous blood-vessels to supply. The pigment is 
enclosed in cells, about the thousandth of an inch in diameter, 
and closely packed together. 



58 SENSE OF SIGHT. 

The retina, or the nervous coat, lies upon the choroid, but does 
not extend so far forward. It is transparent, with a reddish 
colour, owing to its blood-vessels. In its centre is a small, oval, 
yellow spot, iV inch long, -7^ inch wide ; the centre of this is a 
thinner portion of the retina called the central hole. The retina 
consists of various layers. Beginning at the fore part, in contact 
wdth the back lense of the eye, we find a transparent membrane 
called the limiting memhrane, not more than 3o,o~oo inch in thick- 
ness. Next are the ramifications of the optic nerve, fine meshes of 
nerve fibres, exceedingly minute ; the average diameter not more 
than 30,000 inch, while some are less than too^uoo inch. Behind 
this is a layer of nerve cells, resembling the cells of the grey matter 
of the brain. Next is a granular layer, of fine grains or nuclei, 
with exceedingly minute filaments perpendicular to the retina. 
Lastly, comes the hacillar layer, made up of closely-packed per- 
pendicular rods, transparent and colourless, about xchjo inch long, 
and sitTooo thick. Interspersed with these are larger rods called 
cones, "25^0 of an inch in diameter. By these larger and smaller 
rods, is effected the junction of the retina with the choroid ; six or 
eight of the cones, and a large number of the smaller rods grouped 
round them, enter each pigment cell. The rods are themselves in 
connexion with the nerve fibres and nerve cells of the retina, 
through the fine perpendicular filaments. All the elements of the 
retina are most abundant and close in the yellow spot or its 
vicinity, where vision is most distinct. 

To complete the account of the investing membranes of the 
eye, we must allude to certain structures continuous with the 
chof'oid coat, at the junction of the sclerotic with the cornea. 
Three distinct bands are found here; a series of dark radiated 
folds, called the ciliary processes ; a band or ligament connecting 
the choroid with the iris, called the ciliary ligament; and, behind 
the ciliary ligament, and covering the outside of the ciliary pro- 
cesses, the ciliary muscle, a muscle of great importance. The iris 
is the round curtam in front of the eye, with a central hole the 
pupil, for the admission of light. It is attached all round at the 
juncl^on of the sclerotic and cornea, and may be considered a 
modified prolongation of the choroid. The anterior surface is 
coloured and marked by lines, indicating a fibrous structure. The 
fibres are muscular, and of two classes, circular and radiating ; 
their contraction diminishes or widens the pupil of the eye, accord- 
ing to the intensity of the light. 

Next as to the Humours, or lenses of the eye. The aqueous 
humour, in front, is a clear watery liquid lying under the cornea, 
and bounded by the next humour, the crystalline lens, and its 
attachments to the ciliary process. The vitreous humour, behind, 
occupies the whole posterior chamber of the eye, about two-thirds 
of the whole. It is a clear thin fluid enclosed in membrane, 
which radiates into the interior like the partitions of an orange, 
without reaching the central line where the rays of light traverse 



MUSCLES OF THE EYE. 59 

the eye. In shape, it has the convexity of the eye behind ; while 
there is a deep cup -shaped depression for receiving the crystalline 
lens in front. The crystalline lens is a transparent solid lens, in 
form double convex, but more rounded behind than before. It is 
suspended between the two other humours by the membrane of 
the vitreous humour, attaching it to the ciliary processes. 

The eye is moved by six muscles, four recti, or straight, and 
two called oblique. The four recti muscles arise from the bony 
socket in which the eye is placed, around the opening where the 
optic nerve enters from the brain ; and are all inserted in the ante- 
rior external surface of the eyeball, their attachments being 
respectively on the upper, under, outer, and inner edges of the 
sclerotic. The superior oblique, or trochlear, muscle arises close by 
the origin of the superior straight muscle, and passes forward to 
a loop of cartilage ; its tendon passes through the loop, and is 
reflected back, and inserted on the upper posterior surface of the 
eyeball. The inferior oblique muscle arises from the internal 
inferior angle of the fore part of the orbit, and is inserted into the 
external inferior surface of the eyeball, behind the middle of the 
ball. 

The sweep of the eye in all directions arises from the movements 
of these muscles singly, or in combination. Most, if not all, the 
movements might be caused by the four straight muscles, but the 
others come into play, whanever they are able to facilitate any 
desired movement. 

3. The mode of action of the eye involves, in the first 
place, an optical effect. 

When the eye is directed to any object, as a tree, the rays 
of light, entering the pupil, are so refracted by the combined 
operation of the humours, as to form an inverted image on 
the back of the eye, where the transparent retina adjoins the 
choroid coat. The precise mode of stimulating the nervous 
filaments of the retina is not understood ; but we must presume 
that the pigment cells of the choroid play an important part, 
being" themselves acted on by the light. 

The image must be formed, by the due 'convergence of the 
rays, exactly on the retina, and not before or behind. When 
an object is looked at too near, the convergence of the rays is 
behind the retina, and not upon it. The limits of distance, 
for very distinct vision, may be stated at from five to ten 
inches for the majority of persons. 

There is a natural barrier to the power of minute vision ; 
we can distinguish very minute lines and points, but there is 
a degree of minuteness that cannot be discerned. This limit 
is the limit of the fineness of the meshes of the retina about 
the yellow spot. It would seem necessary that every separate 



60 SENSE OF SIGHT. 

nerve, filament, and nerve cell should take a distinct impres- 
sion. 

There is a certain power of adjustment of the eye-ball to 
render vision distinct at varying distances. If an object 
is seen clearly at six inches off, all objects nearer and farther 
will seem indistinct ; the convergence of their rays w^ill be 
behind or before the retina. But, by a change in the eye-ball, 
more distant objects will become distinct, the near becoming 
indistinct. The ciliary muscle is the means of effecting this 
change ; for near vision it contracts, and, in contracting, com- 
presses the vitreous humour, and pushes forward the crystal- 
line lens, pressing more upon the edges than on the middle, 
and thus increasing ifcs curvature ; the optical result is a more 
rapid convergence of the rays of light, whereby the image is 
advanced from behind the retina to an exact coincidence with 
the retina. For distant vision, the muscle relaxes, and the 
elasticity of the parts restores the shape of the lens. This 
adjustment suits a range of from four inches to three feet. 

4. The two eyes, instead of presenting two perfectly 
distinct pictures of the same thing, conspire to render the 
single picture more complete. This is Binocular vision. 

When both eyes are fixed on a near object, as a cubical 
box, held within a few inches of the face, each sees a different 
aspect of it ; the dissimilarity is greater the nearer it is, and 
becomes less as it is more remote, there being a certain dis- 
tance where the two pictures seem identical. Such explanation 
as can be given of this fact belongs to a later stage ; but it is 
here mentioned as involving a farther adjustment to distance, 
namely, the convergence of the two eyes for near distances, 
their parallelism for great distances. 

From misapprehending the process of vision, a difficulty has 
been started as to our seeing objects erect by means of an inverted 
image in the retina. The solution is found in the remark that the 
estimate of up and down is not optical but muscular ; up is what 
we raise the eyes or the head to see. 

5. The Sensations of Sight are partly Optical, the effect 
of light on the retina ; and partly Muscular, from the 
action of the six muscles. We can scarcely have a sen- 
sation without both kinds. 

The Ox)tical sensations are Light, Colour, and Lustre, 

Light. The effect of mere light, without colour, may be 
exemplified in the diffused solar radiance. This is a Pleasure, 



SENSATION OF LIGHT. 61 

acute, or volnminous, according as the source is a dazzling 
point, or a moderate and wide-spread illumination. The Spe- 
.ciality of the pleasnre is the endurability without fatigue, in 
which respect, sight ranks highest of all the senses, and the 
same cause renders it the most intellectual. The influence, 
although powerful for pleasure, is yet so gentle, that it can be 
sustained in presence and recalled in absence to a distinguish- 
ing degree. Whence, as a procuring cause of human and 
animal pleasure, light occupies a high position; there being 
a corresponding misery in privation. 

The intense pleasure of the first exposure after confine- 
ment can last only a short time ; but the influence, in a 
modified degree, remains much longer. After excess, a 
peculiar depression is felt, accompanied with morbid wakeful- 
ness and craving for shade. One of the cruellest of tortures 
was the barbarian device of cutting off the eye-lids, and 
exposing the eyes to the glare of the sun. 

As regards Yolition, the pleasures of light observe the 
general rule of prompting us to act for their continuance and 
increase. But this does not express the whole fact. There 
is a well-known fascination in the glare of light, a power to 
detain the gaze of the eye even after the point of pleasure has 
been passed. We have here a disturbp.nce of the proper 
function of the will, of which there are other examples, to 
be afterwards pointed out. 

The Intellectual property of the sensations of sight has 
been already adduced as their speciality. They admit of being 
discriminated and remembered to a degree beyond any other 
sense, being approached only by hearing. It is possible that 
a well-endowed ear may be more discriminative and tenacious 
of sounds, than a feebly-endowed eye of sights, but, by the 
general consent, sight is placed above hearing in regard to 
intellectual attributes. 

By the Law of Kelativity, the pleasures of light demand 
remission and alternation: hence the art of distributino^ licyht 
and shade. The quantity received, on the whole, may be too 
much, as in sunny climates, or too little, as in the regions of 
prevailing fogs. 

Colour, This is an additional effect of light, serving to 
extend the optical pleasures, as well as the knowledge, of 
mankind. The pure white ray is decomposable into certain 
primary colours, and the presentation of these separately and 
successively, in the proportions that constitute the solar beam, 
imparts a now pleasurable excitement, having all the attri- 



62 SENSE OF SIGHT. 

butes of the pleasure of mere light. There is no absolute 
beauty in any single colour ; when we give a preference 
to red, or blue, or yellow, it is owing to a deficiency as 
regards that colour, in the general scene. As a rule, the 
balance of colour, in our experience, is usually in favour of 
the blue end of the spectrum, and hence red, and its com- 
pounds, are a refreshing alternation. 

Lustre. Some surfaces are said to have lustre, glitter, or 
brilliancy. This is a complex effect of light. A colour seen 
through a transparent covering is lustrous, as the pebbles in 
a clear rivulet. There is also a lustrous effect in a jet black 
surface, if it reflects the light. This luminous reflection, 
superadded to the proper visibility of the surface, is the cause 
of lustre. Transparent surfaces reflect light, like a mirror, as 
well as transmit the colour beneath ; and this multiplication 
of luminous effects adds to the pleasure. The many-sided 
sparkle of the cut crystal, or gem, is a favourite mode of 
giving brilliancy ; the broken glitter is more agreeable than 
a continuous sheet of illumination. 

The highest beauty of visible objects is obtained by lustre. 
The precious gems are recommended by it. The finer woods yield 
it by polish and varnish. The painter's colours are naturally dead, 
and he superadds the transparent film. This property redeems 
the privation of colour, as in the lustrous black. The green leaf 
is often adorned by it, through the addition of moisture. Possibly 
much of the refreshing influence of greenness in vegetation is due 
to lustrous greenness. Animal tissues present the effect in a high 
degree. Ivory, mother of pearl, bone, silk, and wool, are of the 
class of brilhant or glittering substances. The human skin is a 
combination of richness of colouring with lustre. The hair is 
beautiful in a great measure from its brilliancy. The finest 
example is the eye ; the deep black of the choroid, and the 
colours of the iris, are Hquified by the transparency of the 
humours. 

6. The sensations involving the Muscular Movements 
of the eye are visible movement, visible form, apparent 
sizcj distance, volume, and situation. 

Visible Movement The least complicated example of the 
muscular feelings of sight is the following a moving object, 
as a light carried across a room. The eye rotates, as the light 
moves, and the mental effect is a complex sensation of light and 
movement. If the flame moves to the right, the right muscles 
contract ; if to the left, the left muscles ; and so on ; there 
being different muscles, or combinations of muscles, engaged 



VISIBLE MOVEMENT. 63 

for every different direction. Instead of following a straight 
course, the light may change its direction to a bend or a 
curve. This varies the muscular combinations, and their 
relative pace of contraction ; whence results a distinguishable 
mode of consciousness. 

Thus it is, that one and the same optical effect, as a candle- 
flame or a spark, may be imbedded in a great variety of mus- 
cular effects, every one of which is distinguished from the rest, 
and characteristically remembered. The embodiment must be 
contained in the numerous nerve centres and nerve communi- 
cations related to the muscles of the eye. 

As with the muscles generally, we can distinguish, by the 
muscles of the eye, longer or shorter continuance of movement. 
We can thus estimate, in the first place, duration ; and, in the 
second (under certain conditions), visual or apparent exten- 
sion. In like manner, we are conscious of .degrees of speed or 
velocity of movement, w^hich also serves as an indirect measure 
of visible extension. The kind of muscular sensibility that, 
from the nature of the case, cannot belong to the eye, is the 
feeling of Resistance or dead strain, there being nothing to 
constitute a resisting obstacle to the rotation of the ball, 
except its own very small inertia. Hence the eye, with all its 
wide-ranging and close- searching capabilities, cannot be said 
to contribute to the fundamental consciousness of the object 
universe, the feeling of resistance. 

The various pleasures of movement, formerly recited, ap- 
pertain to moving spectacle. The massive, languid feeling of 
slow movements, the excitement of a rapid pace, the pleasures 
of waxing and waning movements (the beauty of the curve), 
can be realized through vision. 

Among the permanent imagery of the intellect, recalled, 
combined, and finally dwelt upon, we are to include visible 
movements. The familiar motions of natural objects — running 
streams, waving boughs, &c. ; the characteristic movements of 
animals, the movements and gestures of human beings, the 
moving machinery and processes of industry — are distinguished 
and remembered by us, and form part of our intellectual 
furniture. 

Visible Form, This supposes objects in stillness, surveyed 
in outline by the eye, and introduces us to co-existence in 
Space, as contrasted with succession in Time. With regard 
to the mere fact of muscular movement, it is the same thing 
for the eye to trace the outline of the rainbow, as to follow 
the flight of a bird, or a rocket. But, as in the case of Touch, 



64 SENSE OF SIGHT. 

already considered, the accessary circumstances make a 
radical difference, and amount to the contrast of succession 
with co-existence. The points of distinction are these : — (1) 
In following the outline of the rainbow, we are not con- 
strained to any one pace of mov^ement, as with a bird, or a 
projectile. (2) The optical impression is not one, but a 
series, which may be a repetition of the same, as the rainbow, 
or different as the landscape. (3) We may repeat the move- 
ment, and find the same series, in the same order. (4) 
We can, by an inverted movement, obtain the series in an 
inverted order. These two experiences — repetition and. in- 
version — stamp a peculiar character of fixity of expectation, 
which belongs to our idea of the extended and co-existing 
in space, as opposed to passing movement. (5) As regards 
sight in particular when compared with touch, the power of 
the eye to embrace at one glance a wide prospect, although 
minutely perceiving only a small portion, confirms the same 
broad distinction, between the starry sky and the transitory 
flight of a meteor. When a series of sensations can be swiul- 
taneously grasped, although with unequal distinctness, this 
gives, in a peculiar manner, the notion of plurality of existence, 
as opposed to continued single existence. 

The course moved over by the eye in scanning an outline, 
leaves a characteristic muscular trace, corresponding to the 
visible form. Thus we have Linear forms — straight, crooked, 
curved, in all varieties of curvature ; Superficial forms and 
outlines — round, square, oval, &c. The visible objects of the 
world are thus distinguished, identified and retained in the 
mind as experiences of optical sensation embedded in ocular 
movements ; and we have a class of related feelings, pleasure- 
able and otherwise, the same as with visible movements. Our 
intellectual stores comprise a great multitude of visible forms. 

Apparent Size. The apparent size or visible magnitude 
embraces two facts, an optical and a muscular. The optical 
fact is the extent of the retina covered by the image, called by 
Wheatstone the retinal magnittide ; the muscular fact is the 
muscular sweep of the eye requisite to compass it. These two 
estimates coincide ; they are both reducible to angular extent, 
or the proportion of the surface to an entire sphere. The 
apparent diameter of the sun, and of the full moon, is half a 
degree, or j-^ of the circumference of the circle of the sky. 
This combined estimate, by means of two very sensitive 
organs — the retina and the ocular muscles, renders our esti- 
mate of apparent size remarkably delicate ; being, in fact, the 



VitSlBLE MAG.NiTUJDE. — DISTANCE. 65 

universal basis of all accurate estimate of quantity. In 
measuring other properties of bodies, as real magnitude, 
weight, heat, &c., we reduce each case to a comparison of two 
visible magnitudes ; such are the tests of a three-foot rule, a 
balance, a thermometer. 

The fluctuations of apparent size in the same thing — a 
remote building for example — are appreciated with corres- 
ponding delicacy ; and when we come to know that these 
tiuctuations are caused by change of real distance, we use 
them as our most delicate indication of degrees of remoteness. 

The celestial bodies are conceived by us solely under their 
apparent or visible size. Terrestrial objects all vary in visible 
size, and are pictured by the mind under a more or less per- 
fect estimate of real size. 

Distance, or varying remoteness. We have as yet supposed 
visible movement and form in only two dimensions, or as ex- 
tending horizontally and vertically. The circumstance of vary- 
ing remoteness, necessary to volume, or three dimensions, de- 
mands a separate handling. We must leave out, at this stage, 
the knowledge of real distance, as well as real magnitude. 

There are two adaptations, or adjustments, of the eyes for 
distance ; a change in the ball for near distances, and a con- 
vergence or divergence of the two eyes for a wider range. 
Both changes are muscular; they are accompanied with a 
consciousness of activity, or the contraction of muscles. The 
change made, in each eye-ball, for a nearer distance is a con- 
scious change ; the return from that is also conscious. The 
gradual convergence or divergence of the two eyes is accom- 
panied with a discriminative muscular consciousness. We can 
thus, by muscularity, discriminate (although not as yet know- 
ing the whole meaning of) bodies moving away from the eye, 
or approaching nearer it. An object moving across the field 
of view is distinguished from the same object retreating or 
advancing ; distinct muscles being brought into play. We 
may, likewise, have the emotional effects of slow, quick, or 
waning movements, by change of distance from the eye. As 
a general rule, there is a relief in passing from a near view to 
a distant. 

We have seen, under the previous head, that variation of 
optical size accompanies variation of distance, and is the most 
delicate test of all. To this we have to add the binocular 
dissimilarity^ which is at the maximum for near distances, and 
^is nothing for great remoteness. There are thus four separate 
circumstances engaged in making us aware of any alteration 



66 SENSE OF SIGHT. 

of the distance of objects from the eye. A fifth will be stated 
afterwards. The importance of this powerful combination 
will appear at an after stage, when the visual perceptions of 
real distance and real size are under consideration. 

Visible Movements and Visible Forms in three dimensions: 
Volume. Applying the discrimination of Distance to visible 
movements and visible forms, we can take cognizance of 
these in all the three dimensions of space. A ship, instead of 
simply crossing the field of view, partly crosses and partly 
moves ofi*; in which case, we combine the lateral movements 
of the eye with the various adjustments and effects of distance ; 
we distinguish the appearance of movement without altera- 
tion of distance, from alteration of distance without lateral 
movement, and from other combinations of the two. 

So with visible forms in three dimensions, as the vista of 
a street. In examining this object, we move the eyes and the 
head right and left, up and down ; and also make conscious 
adjustments for distance, finding that these are the remedy 
for the picture's being confused in certain parts. The feeling 
of the picture is thus a compound of lateral movements, ad- 
justments, and changes of optical magnitude in the things 
observed. 

In every solid form, as a book, a table, a house, this altera- 
tion of adjustment enters into the movements of the eye in 
tracing out the form. Visible solidity, or volume, is thus a 
highly complex perception, involving optical impressions, with 
a series of muscular movements, lateral and adjusting. Each 
different solid combines these in a characteristic way ; cube, 
oblong, sphere, cylinder, human figure — are all distinguished 
and remembered as distinct. 

Visible Situation, Visible situation is made up of the 
elements now described. It is the visible interval between 
one thing and some other thing or things, measured either 
laterally, or in visible remoteness. The situation of a human 
figure, with reference to a pillar, is right or left, up or down, 
near or far, and at definite visible intervals. 



THE APPETITES. 67 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE APPETITES. 

The Appetites are a select class of Sensations; they 
may be defined as the uneasy feelings produeed by the recur- 
ring wants or necessities of the organic system. 

Appetite involves volition or action ; now volition demands 
a motive or stimulus ; and the stimulus of Appetite is some 
sensation. All sensations, however, that operate on the will 
are not appetites. The commonly recognized appetites grow 
out of the periodic or recurring wants of the organic system ; 
they are Sleep^ Exercise, Bepose, Thirst, Hunger, Sex. 

Sleep, The two conditions, namely, periodic recurrence, 
and organic necessity, are well exemplified in sleep. The 
natural course of the system brings on sleep, without our 
willing it ; and its character as an appetite, or craving, 
appears when it is resisted. A massive form of uneasiness 
is then felt ; the will is urged to remove this uneasiness, and 
to obtain the corresponding voluminous pleasure of falling 
asleep ; which volitional urgency is the appetite. 

Exercise and Repose, Within the waking state, there is an 
alternation of exercise and repose, essential to a sound organic 
condition ; and this is accompanied with cravings. After rest, 
the refreshed organs start into exercise ; the withholding of 
this causes physical discomfort, which is the motive to burst 
forth into activity. Mere spontaneity sets us on ; any ob- 
struction urges the will to take steps for its removal ; this is 
the working of appetite. Similar observations apply to 
Repose. 

The alternation of exercise with repose is sought through- 
out all our activities, bodily and mental. In the use of our 
different organs, whether muscles or senses, in the employ- 
ment of the brain in intellectual functions, there is a point 
where the tendency to repose sets in, and where resistance 
occasions appetite. 

Thirst, Inanition, Hunger, The cravings under these 
states show the twofold operation of Appetite — the massive 
uneasiness of privation, and the equally massive pleasure 
of gratification, whose combined motive power makes the 



68 THE INSTINCTS. 

{Strength of the volition or appetite. Besides these general 
cravings growing up under deticiencj of nourishment, we are 
said to have artihcial cravings, for special foods, condiments, 
and stimulants, that we have found agreeable, and have 
become accustomed to : for example, sweets, alcoholic drinks, 
tea, tobacco, &c. 

Tiie craving for imre air, after closeness and confinement, 
strictly conforms to the general definition of appetite. 

Sex. The appetite that brings the sexes together is founded 
on peculiar secretions, periodically arising in the system after 
puberty, and creating an uneasiness until discharged or ab- 
sorbed. The organic necessity here is of a less imperious 
kind, and the motive power lies most in the delight of 
gratification. 

The habitual routine of life, if in smj way crossed, is a 
sjDCcies of appetite. Uneasiness is caused by any thwarting 
circumstance, while the compliance may be, of itself, either 
pleasurable or indifierent. 



CHAP TEE IV. 

THE INSTINCTS. 

The accoiuit how given of the sensations is a sufficient 
preparation for entering on the Intellect. Nevertheless, it 
is convenient to comprise, in the present book, a A^iew of 
the instinctive arrangements related both to Feeling and 
to Volition; for upon these also are based many intel- 
lectual growths. 

Instinct is defined as untaught ability. It is the name 
given to what can be done prior to experience or education ; 
as sucking in the child, walking on all fours by the newly - 
dropped calf, pecking by the bird just emerged Irom its shell, 
the maternal attentions of animals generally. 

In all the three regions of mind — Feeling, Volition, and 
Intellect — there is of necessity a certain primordial structure, 
the foundation of all our powers. There are also certain 
arrangements, not usually included in mind, that yet are in 
close alliance and continuity with mental actions — as, for 



LOCOMOTIVE RHYTHM. 69 

example, swallowing the food. The following subjects are 
exhaustive of the department : — 

1. The B.ejiex Actions, 

2. The Combined and Harmonious Movements, 
8. The Primitive Manifestations of Feeling, 

4, The Germs of Volition, 

The Rsflex Actions have already been described under the 
['unctions of the Spinal Cord and Medulla Oblongata. 

THE PRIMITIYE COMBINED MOVEMENTS. 

1. Of the primitive arrangements for Combining Move- 
ments in Aggregation, or in Succession, the most Promi- 
nent example is the locomotive rhythm. 

In the inferior quadrupeds, this is manifestly instinctive. 
The calf, the foal, the lamb, can walk the day they are 
dropped. Although human beings are unable to walk for 
many months after birth, there are reasons for the fact, in the 
unconsolidated state of the bones, in the immature condition 
of the human infant generally, and in the special difiiculty of 
maintaining the erect posture. It is still probable that man 
has an instinctive tendency to alternate the movements of the 
lower limbs. The analogy of the quadrupeds is in favour of 
this view, and it is a matter of observation that infants in the 
arms are disposed to throw out their limbs in alternation. 

2. The Locomotive Eliythm maybe analyzed into three 
distinct combinations. 

Fn^st, it involves the reciprocation of each limb separately ; 
or the tendency to vibrate to and fro, by the alternate sti- 
mulus of the two opposing sets of muscles. In walking, the 
flexor and the extensor muscles, have to be contracted by 
turns ; the pendulous movement being also partly aided by 
gravity. It may easily be supposed that the nervous con- 
nexion of these opposing sets of muscles is made on a general 
plan throughout the body; as no' continuous exertion is pos- 
sible without replacing each member in the position that it 
starts from. On this assumption, the swing of all the organs 
would be the result of a primitive arrangement. 

Secondly. There must be an alternate movement of corre- 
sponding limbs. The right and left members must move, not 
together, but b}^ turns. For this, too, there is needed a pri- 
mitive nervous arrangement avaihng itself of the commissural 



70 THE INSTINCTS. 

nervous connexions of the two sides of tlie body. The effect 
is not exclusively confined to the limbs ; the arms and the 
entire trunk join in the alternation. We shall see presently 
that there are important exceptions. 

Thirdly. The locomotion of quadrupeds involves a farther 
arrangement for alternating the fore and hind limbs. In rep- 
tiles, worms, &c., there is a progressive contraction from one 
end of the body to the other. The successive segments of the 
body are united in their action by an appropriate nervous 
connexion. It is hardly to be expected that any trace of this 
should appear in man, so rare are the occasions for it. Still, 
we may remark the great readiness to alternate arms and 
legs, in climbing, and in rowing a boat. 

3. We find in the human system examples of primitive 
associated movements. 

The chief example is furnished by the two eyes. We cannot, 
if we would, prevent them from moving together. The only 
interference with this tendency is the act of converging 
them in the adjustment for distance. 

There is also in the eyes an associated action between the 
iris and the inward movement of the eyeball for near vision. 
In near vision, the iris is always contracted. 

The association of the two sides of the body, in common 
movements, extends to the eyelids and the features, although 
there is a possibility of disassociating these, or of distorting 
the face. We find also a considerable proneness to move the 
arms together, as may be seen plainly in children. 

4. The different moving members tend to harmony of 
pace. 

Any one organ quickly moved imparts quickness to the rest 
of the movements ; rapid speech induces rapid gesticulation ; 
the spectacle of hurried action has an exciting effect. So, by 
inducing a slow pace on any member, we impart a quieting 
influence throughout : slow speech is accompanied with 
languid gestures. This principle indicates a medium whereby 
our actions are brought under control. 

THE INSTINCTIVE PLAY OF FEELING. 

1. The union of mind and body is specially shown in 
the Instinctive play or Expression of the Feelings. 

It is one of the oldest and most familiar experiences of 
the human race, that the several feelings have characteristic 



KXPKESSION OF THE FACE. 71 

bodily accompaniments. Joy, sorrow, fear, anger, pride, have 
each their distinct manifestations, sometimes called their 
natural language, the same in all ages and in all peoples. 
This points to certain primitive or instinctive connexions be- 
tween the mental and the bodily processes. 

2. The bodily accompaniments of the Feelings are of 
two classes — Movements, and Organic effects. The Face 
and features are most susceptible to movement under 
feeling ; hence the face is by pre-eminence the index to 
the mind. 

The movements of the Face have been analyzed by Sir 
Charles Bell, 

The muscles of the face, by means of which its expression is 
governed, are arranged round the ^three centres, — the mouth, the 
nose, the eyes. 

The expression of the Eyes is due chiefly to the movements of 
the eyebrow, under the action of two muscles. The one foccipito- 
frontalis J is the broad thin muscle of the scalp, and extends down 
the forehead to the eyebrows ; its action being to raise them in 
cheerful expression. The other muscle fcorrugator of the eye- 
brows) passes across from one eyebrow to the other, and, when in 
action, knits the brows as in frowning; indirectly it lowers them 
in opposition to the scalp muscle. 

Expression in a smaller degree attaches to the movements 
of the eyelids. The lids are closed by the orbicular muscle, 
or sphincter of the eyes. They are opened by the elevating 
muscle of the upper eyelid (levator palpebrcej ; the rapid action 
of which under strong emotion gives the effect of a flash of the 
eye. 

The Nose is moved by three small muscles and one large. The 
pyramidal is a small muscle lying on the nasal bone, or upper half 
of the nose, and appears to be a continuation of the scalp muscle ; 
it wrinkles the skin at the root of the nose. The compressor of the 
nose is a thin small muscle running transverse, on the lower part 
of the nose, but, instead of compressing the nose as the name indi- 
cates, it expands the nostril, by raising the cartilages. The 
depressor of the wing of the nose is a small flat muscle lying deep 
in the upper lip ; according to its name it would be opposed to the 
preceding. 

No very conspicuous manifestation is due to any one of these 
three muscles ; the expansion of the nostril by the second is per- 
haps the most marked effect. The most notable expression 
attaches to the common elevator of the lip and nose. This muscle 
lies along the side and wing of the nose, extending from the orbit 
of the eye to the upper lip. It raises the wing of the nose and 
the upper lip together ; it is thoroughly under the command of 



72 THE INSTINCTS. 

the will, and produces a very marked contortion of feature, 
wrinkling the nose and raising the upper lip. In expressing dis- 
gust at a bad smell, it is readily brought into play, and is tllence 
used in expressing repugnance generally. 

The MOUTH is moved by one orbicular muscle, and by eight 
pairs radiating from it round the face. The orbicular f^ orbicularis 
oris J is composed of concentric fibres surrounding the opening of 
the mouth, but not continued from one lip to another. 

The eight radiating pairs may be enumerated in order from 
above, round to beneath, as follows : — 

(1) The proper elevator of the tipper Up extends from the lower 
border of the orbit of the eye to the upper lip, lying close to the 
border of the common elevator of lip and nose. When the lip is 
raised without raising the nose, which is not a very easy act, this 
muscle is the instrument. (2) The elevator of the angle of the mouth 
lies beneath the preceding, and partly concealed by it. (3, 4) 
The zygomatics are two narrow bands of muscular fibres, extending 
obliquely from the cheek bone to the angle of the mouth, one 
being larger and longer than the other. In combination with the 
elevator of the angle of the mouth, they serve to retract the mouth, 
and curve it upwards in smiling. (5) The huccinator (or cheek 
muscle) is a thin, flat, broad muscle, occupying the interval be- 
tween the jaws. It is used in masticating the food ; it would also 
conspire with the zygomatics in drawing out the mouth in the 
jjleasing expression. Proceeding to the lower region of the face, 
we have (6) the depressor of the angle of the mouthy extending from 
the angle of the mouth to the lower jaw, and acting according to 
its name. (7) The depressor of the lower lip is a small square 
muscle, lying partly underneath, and partly inside, the preceding-. 
(8) The elevator of the loiver lip arises from a slight pit below the 
teeth sockets of the lower jaw, and thence descends to the lower 
part of the integument of the chin, so as to raise the lower lip. 
The combined action of this muscle and the depressor of the angle 
(6) is to curve the mouth downward, and pout the lower lip, a 
very marked expression of pain and displeasure. 

3. The Voice and the Respiratory muscles coiicnr with 
the face in the expression of feeling. 

The proper organ of voice is the Ijarynx, with its vocal 
cords. Certain muscles operate in tightening, relaxing, and 
approximating the cords ; to produce sound, they must be 
tightened and drawn together. But the exertion of the 
Laryngeal muscles is only a part of the case. The chest must 
act in a manner different from ordinary breathing, and force 
air more quickly through the air passages ; while, in articu- 
late utterance, the ton^-ue and mouth have to co-operate. All 
these parts are actuated under feeling. In joy or exulta- 
tion, and in angjr, energetic shouts are emitted ; in fear. 



OKGOIC ACCOMP.VNIMENTS OF FEELING. 73 

the voice trembles ; in acute pain, it gives forth sharp cries ; 

in sorrow, there is a languid drawling note. 

Irrespective of the play of the voice, the respiratory muscles 

Vive affected under emotion. In laughter, the diaphragm is 

convulsed ; in depressing emotion, the sigh shows that it is 

partially paral^^zed. 

• 

4. The muscles of the Body generally may be stimu- 
lated under strong feeling. 

Any great mental excitement is accompanied with agitation 
of the whole body ; the concurring nervous wave requires the 
larger organs to discharge itself upon. 

5. States of feeling have also Organic accompaniments, 
or influences on the viscera and the processes of secretion, 
excretion, &c. 

Probably no organ is exempted from participating in the 
embodiment of the feelings. 

(1) The Lachrymal Gland and Sac. The effusion of tears from 
the gland is steady and constant during waking hours. States 
of emotion, — tenderness, grief, excessive joy — cause the liquid to 
be secreted and poured out in large quantities, so as to moisten 
the eye, and overflow upon the cheek. By such outpouring, a re- 
lief is often experienced under oppressive pain, the physical cir- 
cumstance being apparently the discharging of the congested 
vessels of the brain. A strong sensibility undoubtedly lodges in 
the lachrymal organ, the proof of a high cerebral connexion. The 
ordinary and healthy flow of this secretion, when conscious, is 
connected with a comfortable and genial feeling ; in the convul- 
sive sob, not only is the quantity profuse, but the quality would 
appear to be changed to a strong brine. 

(2) The Sexual Organs. These organs are both sources of feel- 
ing when directly acted on, and the recipients of mfluence from 
the brain under many states of feeling otherwise arising. They 
are a striking illustration of the fact that our emotions are not go- 
verned by the brain alone, but by that in conjunction with the 
other organs of the body. No cerebral change is known to arise 
with puberty ; nevertheless, a grand extension of the emotional 
susceptibilities takes place at that season. Although the sexual 
organs may not receive their appropriate stimulation from without, 
the mere circumstance of their full development, as an additional 
echo to the nervous waves diffused from the cerebrum, alters the 
whole tone of the feelings of the mind, like the addition of a new 
range of pipes to a wind instrument. It is the contribution of a 
resonant as well as a sensitive part. 

(3) The Bigestive Organs. These have been already fully described ; 
and their influence upon the mind has also been dwelt upon. 



74 THE INSTINCTS. 

In tlie present connexion, we have to advert more particularly to 
tlie reciprocal influence of the mind upon them. It may be 
doubted if any considerable emotion passes over us without telling- 
upon the processes of digestion, either to quicken or to depress 
them. All the depressing and perturbing passions are known to 
take away appetite, to arrest the healthy action of the stomach, 
liver, bowels, &c. A hilarious excitement within limits, stimu- 
lates those functions ; although joy may be so intense as to pro- 
duce the perturbing effect ; in which case, however, it may be 
noted that the genuine charm or fascination is apt to give place to 
mere tumultuous passion. 

The influence of the feelings in Digestion is seen in a most 
palpable form in the process of salivation. In Fear, the mouth is 
parched by the suppression of the flow of the saliva : a precise 
analogy to what takes place with the gastric juice in the stomach. 

An equally signal example in the same connexion is the chok- 
ing sensation in the throat during a paroxysm of grief. The 
muscles of the pharynx, which are, as it were, the beginning of 
the muscular coat of the alimentary canal, are spasmodically con- 
tracted, instead of alternating in their due rhythm. The remark- 
able sensibility of this part during various emotions, is to be con- 
sidered as only a higher degree of the sensibility of the intestine 
generally. The sum of the whole effect is considerable in mass, 
although wanting in acuteness. In pleasurable emotion even, a 
titillation of the throat is sometimes perceptible. 

(4) The Skin. The cutaneous perspiration is liable to be acted 
on during strong feelings. The cold sweat from fear or depress- 
ing passion, is a sudden discharge from the sudorific glands of the 
skin. We know, from the altered odour of the insensible or 
gaseous perspiration during strong excitement, how amenable the 
functions of the skin are to this cause. It may be presumed, on 
the other hand, that pleasurable elation exerts a genial influence 
on all those functions. 

A precisely similar line of remarks would apply to the Kidneys. 

(5) The Heart. The propulsive power of the heart's action 
varies with mental states as well with physical health and vigour. 
Some feelings are stimulants, and add to the power, while great 
pains, fright, and depression niay reduce the action to any extent. 
Miiller remarks, that the disturbance of the heart is a proof 
of the great range of an emotional wave ; or its extending beyond 
the sphere of the cerebral nerves to parts affected by the sympa- 
thetic nerve. 

(6) The Lacteal Gland in women. Besides the fiVQ organs now 
enumerated as common to the two sexes, we must reckon the 
speciality of women, namely, the Secretion of the Milk. As in all 
the others, this secretion is genial, comfortable, and healthy, during 
some states of mind, while depressing passions check and poison 
it. Being an additional seat of sensibility, and an additional reson- 
ance to the diffused wave of feeling, this organ might be expected 
to render the female temperament a degree more emotional than 



PLEASURE CONCOMITANT WITH INCREASED VITALITY. 75 

tlie male, especially after cliild-bearing has brought it into full 
play. 

6. The connexion of feelings with physical states may 
be summed up, for one large class of the facts, in the fol- 
lowing principle : — States of pleasure are concomitant with 
an increase, and states of pain with an abatement^ of some, 
or all, of the vital functions. 

The proofs of this principle turn upon the considera- 
tion, first, of the Agents, and secondly, of the Manifesta- 
tions of feeling. 

(1) Taking the simple feelings, as already described, and 
beginning with the muscular, we remark that muscular exer- 
cise, when pleasurable, is the outpouring of exuberant energy. 
Muscular fatigue is the result of exhaustion. The pleasure 
of repose after fatigue is probably connected with the reflux 
of the blood from the muscles to other organs, as the bram, 
the stomach, &c. Muscular activity subsides, and organic 
activity takes its place ; and there are other reasons for believ- 
ing, that our pleasurable tone is more dependent upon the 
organic than upon the muscular vigour. 

The extensive and important group of feelings denomi- 
nated Sensations of Organic Life, attest with singular explicit- 
ness the truth of the principle. The organic pleasures — from 
Respiration, Digestion, &c. — are associated with the vitalizing 
agencies ; the organic pains, which include the catalogue of 
diseases and physical injuries, point to the reverse. The 
apparent exceptions are an interesting study. Thus, Cold may 
be both painful and wholesome. The explanation seems to be 
that cold for the time depresses the functions of the skin, and 
is thus a medium of pain, while it invigorates the muscles, the 
nerves, and the lungs, and through these eventually the di- 
gestion. And the instance illustrates the superior sensitive- 
ness of the skin, as compared with these other organs ; whence 
we see that though our pleasures are connected with high 
vitality, they are not equally connected with all the vital 
functions. This remark may enable us to dispose of the other 
exception, namely, the concurrence of bodily diseases with pain-- 
lessness, and even with comfort and elation of mind. In such 
cases, the disease may attach to insensitive organs and fanc- 
tions. Mere muscular weakness is not in itself uncomfortable ; 
the heart may be radically deranged without pain ; and there 
may be forms of disease of the lungs, liver, kidneys, &c., that 
do not affect the sensitive nerves. But skin disease, insufficient 



76 . THE INSTINCTS. 

warmth, indigestion, and certain otber forms of derangement, 
together with wounds and sores, are attended with unfailing 
pain and misery. 

Thus, as regards the muscular feelings, and the sensations 
of the organic group, the induction may be held as proved, 
with the qualification now stated. When, however, we pro- 
ceed to the five senses, we are not struck with the same con- 
currence. In the pleasures of Taste, Smell, Touch, Hearing, 
Sight, there may be, and undoubtedly is, a certain increase of 
vital power, as in the influence of light, or ' the cheerful day,' 
yet the increase of general vitality is not in the same rate as 
the pleasure. In short, the induction fails at this point ; 
and some other principle is needed to complete the desired 
explanation. 

(2) Let us view the manifestations under the opposing "states 
of pleasure and pain. This will comprehend the theory of 
Expression, of whicb we have seen the particulars. 

Here the general fact is, that under pleasure all the mani- 
festations are lively, vigorous, and abundant, showing that 
our energies are somehow raised for the time. Under pain, 
on the contrary, there is a quiescence, collapse, and paralysis 
of the energies ; hurt and disease prostrate the patient ; the 
sick-bed is the place of inactivity. 

To quote liell's analysis of the pleasing* and the painful 
expression of the face: — In joy, the eye-brows are raised, and 
the mouth dilated, the result being to open and expand the 
countenance. In painful emotions, the eye-brows are knit 
by the corrugator muscle, the mouth is drawn together and 
perhaps depressed at the angles. Now, in the J03^ful expres- 
sion, there is obviously a considerable amount of muscular 
energy put forth ; a number of large muscles are contracted 
through their whole range. So far the principle holds good. 
Again, in pain the same muscles are relaxed, but then other 
muscles are in operation ; so that the difference would seem to 
be, not difference of energ}^, but a different direction to the 
energ}^ This fact has the air of a paradox, and has been 
felt as a puzzle. Pleasure and pain are states totally opposed, 
like plus and minus, credit and debt ; and their physical con- 
ditions ought to disclose a like opposition. Perhaps we may 
reconcile the appearances in the manner following. It is 
true, that in pain certain muscles operate, but they are 
muscles of small size ; and, by their contraction, the}^ more 
thoroughly relax much larger muscles, thus on the whole re- 
leasing nervous energy and blood to go to other parts of the 



CONVULSIVE OUTBURSTS OF FEELING. 77 

system. The slight exertion of the cornigator of the eye- 
brows completes the relaxation of the f^ir more povverfnl 
mascle that elevates them ; the contraction of the mouth 
releases the larger muscles of retractation. Still more ap- 
parent is the operation of the flexor muscles of the body ; 
the great preponderance of muscular strength is in the muscles 
of erection ; now, in the crouching and collapsed attitude, 
these are relaxed more completely through a small exertion 
of the flexor muscles. Hence the putting forth of power may 
S3t free power on the whole; the forced sadness of the coun- 
tonance making the heart better. 

Another exceptional manifestation is the energetic display 
under acute pain. This, however, is only the operation of 
another law of the constitution. Any sudden and intense 
shock is a stimulus to the nerves, and produces a general ex- 
citement in consequence. It is well known that, in the case 
of pain, such excitement is fully paid for by the after-prostra- 
tion, and that the eflect, on the whole, is in accordance with 
the main principle. 

The two great convulsive outbursts — Laughter and Sobbing — 
supply additional examples. 

Laughter is a joyful expression; and, in all its parts, it indi- 
cates exalted energy. The great muscle of expiration, the dia- 
phragm, is convulsed ; in other words, is made to undergo a series 
of rapid and violent contractions, showing the presence of a for- 
cible stimulus. The voice concurs in active manifestations; the 
features are expanded to the full limit of the cheerful expression. 
Yet, with all this expenditure, there is no subsequent depression, 
as in acute pains ; on the contrary, the organic functions are 
popularly believed to share in the general exaltation. 

In the convulsive outburst of Grief nearly every thing is reversed. 
The expiration is rendered slow — that is, the diaphragm and the 
other expiratory muscles fail in their of&ce for want of nervous 
power. The voice acts feebly, and sends out a long-drawn melan- 
choly note. The pharynx, or bag of the throat, is partially para- 
lyzed, and swallowing impeded. The features are relaxed ; the 
whole body droops. (When a robust child cries for a trifling rea- 
son, there may be few signs of weakened vitality; but then there 
is no real grief.) Finally, the lachrymal effusion is supposed to 
have a relation to the congested state of the blood vessels of the 
brain, which it partially relieves. 

The proofs of the principle in question, derived from the 
study of the separate manifestations under pleasure and under 
pain, apply both to sensations and to emotions. They show 
that, although there may be forms of pleasure, with no such ap- 



78 THE INSTINCTS. 

parent addition to the physical resources, as in the diges- 
tive and respiratory processes, yet the existing resources are 
drawn upon to augment some of the active functions. 

This last consideration appears to meet the case of the plea- 
sures of the five senses. Si^'hts and sounds add nothing^ to 
the material resources of the body, like food and air, but they 
render them available for the evolution of nerve force. We 
are thus conducted to the enunciation of another principle, 
qualifying and completing the one that we started with. 

7. The concomitance of pleasure and increased vitality 
(with the obverse) is qualified, but not contradicted, by the 
operation of Stimulants. 

Stimulants are of two classes : (1) the ordinary agents 
of the senses (tastes, odours, touches, &c.) and the emotions 
(wonder, love, &c.) ; and (2) the stimulating drugs. 

(1) As regards three of the senses, Touch, Hearing, and 
Sight, their natural stimulation by the appropriate agents, is 
pleasurable within certain limits of intensity, determined by 
the vigour and freshness of the nervous system. It is plea- 
sant for the ear to be assailed with sound, and the eyes with 
light, until such time as the organs are fatigued, and the 
nervous irritability exhausted. In these senses, pain is due 
mainly to excess of stimulus. With reference to Taste and 
Smell, the case is diSerent ; there are agents specifically plea- 
surable, and agents specifically painful, in all degrees ; the 
sweet and bitter in taste, the fragrant and malodorous in smell, 
are not grounded on mere difierence of intensity. We must 
suppose that certain agents are, in all degrees, favourable to 
nervous stimulation, and certain other agents unfavourable. 

The higher Emotions present no diflB.culty. Those that 
are pleasurable, as Wonder, Love, Power, Complacency, 
Approbation, Knowledge, Harmony, are favourable to vitality, 
or give healthful stimulus ; the painful emotions, as Fear, 
Hatred, Impotence, Shame, Discord, are depressing physically 
as well as mentally. 

(2) The stimulating drugs, as alcohol, tea, tobacco, opium, 
hemp, betel-nut, do but little to enhance vital action, and, in 
all but their moderate application, greatly waste it. They are 
therefore the extreme form of stimulation proper ; they draw 
upon the nervous power, without contributing to it: thereby 
proving in a still more obtrusive form, that we do not realize 
all the pleasurable excitement that the physical forces of the 



STIxMULATION. 79 

system can afford, unless we employ agents to irritate or pro- 
voke nervous assimilation and activity. 

8. The principle of the concomitance of pleasure and 
vitalizing influences (with the ©bverse) may be designated 
the Law of Self-conservation. 

If the case were otherwise, the human and animal system 
would be framed for its own ruin. If pleasure were uniformly 
connected with lowered vitality, and pain with the opposite, 
who would care to keep themselves alive ? On the other 
hand, the dangerous licence of the qualifying principle of 
Stimulation, is the limitation to the principle, and the open 
door for abuse. We cannot have pleasure without at least 
one element of activity — nervous assimilation ; it is possible, 
however, that other interests may be suffering without affect- 
ing the tone at the moment, although they will fulfil the 
inexorable law on some future day. 

We shall presently have to appeal to the principle of Con- 
servation, in looking out a basis for the will. 

THE INSTINCTIVE GERMS OF THE WILL. 

1. Our voluntary power, as appearing in mature life, 
is a bundle of acquisitions. 

The hungry man, seeing food before him, puts forth his 
hand, lifts a morsel to his mouth, chews, masticates, and 
swallows it. The infant can do nothing of all that ; there is 
no link of connexion established in its mind between the state 
of hunger and the movements for gratifying it. A fly lights 
upon the face of a child, producing a tickling irritation ; but 
the movement for brushing it away is not within the infant's 
powers. It is by a course of acquirement, that the local feeling 
of irritation in any part is associated with the mov^ement of 
the hand towards that part. Such associations are neces- 
sarily very numerous ; the will is a machinery of detail. 

The acquirement must rest on certain primitive founda- 
tions ; these alone are to be considered at the present stage. 

2. I. — One of the foundations of voluntary power i.- 
given in the spontaneity of muscular action. 

We have already adduced the evidence for the spontaneity 
of the muscular discharge. In it, we have a source of 
movements of all the active organs ; each member is disposed 
to pass into action merely through the stimulus of the central 
energy. The locomotion, the voice, the features, the jaws. 



80 THE INSTINCTS. 

and tongue are all exerfced by turns, when their nervous 
centres are in a fresh and nourished condition. 

Still spontaneity does not amount to will. Ifcs impulses 
are random and purposeless ; the movements of the will are 
select and pointed to an end ; spontaneity fails, when the will 
is most wanted — that is, when the system is exhausted and 
needs refreshment. 

3. 11. — Another foundation of voluntary power is to be 
sought for in the great law of Self-conservation. 

In the fact that pleasure is accompanied with heightened 
energy, and pain with lowered energy, there is a beginning 
of voluntary control, although only a beginning. Under cer- 
tain circumstances, this concurrence does what the will is 
expected to do, namely, secures pleasure and alleviates pain. 
Should a present movement coincide with a present pleasure, 
the pleasure, through its accompaniment of increased energy, 
would tend to maintain and increase the movement ; as when 
already the sucking infant experiences the relish and nutritive 
stimulus of the mother's milk ; or when mastication already 
begun is yielding the pleasurable relish of the food. The 
process is a roundabont one ; for, by the law of conservation, all 
that is gained at first is increase of vital energy in the organs 
generally — organic functions and muscles alike : the special 
movement in question merely participating in the general rise 
of power. 

Again, to illustrate from the side of pain. If a present 
movement coincides with a present pain (not a stimulating 
smart), the concomitant of the pain is lowered vital energy, 
which lowering extends to the movement supposed, and 
arrests it ; as when an animal moving up to a fire encounters 
the scalding heat, with its depressing influence, and there- 
upon has its locomotion suspended. 

In the cases now supposed, the influence of self-conserva- 
tion is tantamount to the action of the will at any stage : the 
deficiency is, that mere conservation will not, any more than 
spontaneity, determine the right movement to arise from the 
dormant condition. To get at this is the real difficulty of the 
problem. 

4. The coincidence of a pleasure with the movements 
proper to maintain or increase it, must be at first acci- 
dental. 

Nothing but chance can be assigned as the means of first 



- FOUNDATIONS OF THE WILL. 81 

bringing together pleasure and movement. Spontaneity in- 
duces a variety of movements : should any one of these coin- 
cide with a moment of pleasurable feeling, it would be ren- 
dered more energetic by the accompanying outburst of energy. 
The newly-dropped animal, on touching the warm body of the 
mother, is physically elated through the pleasure of the con- 
tact, and increases the movement that keeps it up. When 
after an hour's fumbling, it gets the teat into its mouth, there 
is a new burst of pleasure and concomitant vitality. The 
stimulus of the sucking (itself an untaught or reflex process) 
still farther inspires the energies to continue the movement 
once begun. But previous to the accidents that brought on 
these encounters, the animal could not of its own accord hit 
upon the appropriate actions. The human infant cannot find 
its way to the breast ; it can only suck when placed there. 

5. III. — When the same movement coincides more 
than once with a state of pleasure, the Eetentive ]30wer of 
the mind begins an association between the two. 

After a few returns of the favourable accident that first 
brought together the movement and the pleasure (or relief 
from pain), the two are connected by an associating link, and 
the rise of the pleasure is then apt to be attended with the 
movement for retaining and increasing it. After a number 
of concurrences of the relish of food with the masticating 
process, the morsel of food in the mouth directly prompts the 
jaws to operate. 

This part of our education will be again touched on, under 
the Intellect, and more fully in the detailed explanation of 
the growth of the Will. 



BOOK II. 

THE INTELLECT. 



1. The functions of Intellect, Intelligence, or Thought, 
are known by such names as Memory, Judgment, Ab- 
straction, Eeason, Imagination. 

These last designations were adopted by Reid, Stewart, and 
others, as providing a division of the powers of the Intellect. 
But, strictly looked at, the division is bad ; the parts do not 
mutuallj^ exclude each other. The real subdivision of the 
intellectual functions is that formerly given, and now repeated. 

2. The primary attributes of Intellect are (1) Con- 
sciousness of Dij^erence, (2) Consciousness of Agreement, 
and (3) Retentiveness, Every properly intellectual func- 
tion involves one or more of these attributes and nothing 
else. 

(1) Discrimination or Feeling of Difference is an essential 
of intelligence. If we were not distinctively affected by dif- 
ferent things, as by heat and cold, red and blue, we should 
not be affected at all. The beginning of knowledge, or ideas, 
is the discrimination of one thing from another. Where we 
are most discriminative, as in our higher senses, we are most 
intellectual. Even with reference to our pleasures and pains, 
we perform an intellectual operation when we recognize them 
as differing in degree. 

This function of the Intellect has been already apparent in 
the Feelings of Movement and the Sensations. The very 
fact of distinguishing the Senses, and their Sensations, sup- 
poses the exercise of discrimination. No separate chapter is 
required for the farther elucidation of this fact. There are 



DISCKIMINATION. — AGREEMENT. — RETENTIVENESS. 83 

higher cases of discrimination, as when a banker detects a 
forged bank note, or a lawyer sees a flaw in a deed, but these 
are involved in the intellectual acquisitions, or the Retentive 
power of the mind. 

The fundamental property of Discrimination is also ex- 
pressed as the Law of Relativity, more than once already 
alluded to. As we can neither feel, nor know, without a 
transition or change of state, — every feeling, and every cognition, 
must be viewed as in relation to some other feeling, or cog- 
nition. The sensation of heat has no absolute character; 
there is in it a transition from a previous state of cold, and the 
sensation is wholly relative to that state. It is known, with 
regard to the feelings generally, that they subsist upon com- 
parison ; the pleasure of good health is relative to ill health ; 
wealth supposes comparative indigence. Also, as regards 
knowledge, everything known, is known in contrast to some- 
thing else; 'up' implies 'down;' 'black' presumes 'white,' 
or other colours. There cannot be a single or absolute cog- 
nition. 

(2) The conscious state arising from Agreement in the 
midst of difference, is equally marked and equally fundamen- 
tal. Supposing us to experience, for the first time, a certain 
sensation, as redness ; and after being engaged with other sen- 
sations, to encounter redness again ; we are struck with the 
feeling of identity or recognition ; the old state is recalled at 
the instance of the new, by the fact of agreement, and we have 
the sensation of red, together with a new and peculiar con- 
sciousness, the consciousness of agreement in diversity. As 
the diversity is greater, the shock of agreement is more lively. 

All knowledge finally resolves itself into Differences and 
Agreements. To define anything, as a cu*cle, is to state its 
agreements with some things (genus) and its difference from 
other things (differentia). 

The identifying process implied under Agreement, is a 
great means of mental resuscitation or Reproduction, and 
hence is spoken of as the Associating, or Reproductive prin- 
ciple of Similarity. A considerable space will be devoted to 
the exposition of the principle in this view. 

(3) The attribute named Eetentiveness has two aspects or 
degrees. 

First, The persistence or continuance of the mental agita- 
tion, after the agent is withdrawn. When the ear is struck 
by the sound of a bell, there is a mental awakening, termed 
the sensation of sound ; and the silencing of the bell does not 



84 THE INTELLECT. 

silence the mental excitement ; there is a continuing, thongh 
feebler consciousness, which, is the memory or idea of the 
sound. 

Secondly, There is a further and higher power, — the re- 
covering, under the form of ideas, past and dormant impres- 
sions, without the originals, and by mere mental agencies. It 
is possible, at an after time, to be put in mind of sounds for- 
merly heard, without a repetition of the sensible effect. This 
is true memory, and is a power unknown except in connexion 
with the animal organism. The previously- named property is 
paralleled by the waves of a pool struck by a stone, or by any 
other example of the law of mechanical persistence. But the 
distinct recovery of effects that have been obliterated from the 
actual view, and the accumulation, in one organism, of thou- 
sands of these recoverable effects, may be af&rmed to be the 
unique function of creatures endowed with a brain and nervous 
system. 

As the principal naedium of this recovery is the presence 
of some fact or ch^cumstance formerly co- existing with, or in 
any way contiguous to, the effect remembered, — as when we 
recall a thing by first knowing its name, — the Retentive pro- 
perty has been designated Contiguous Association. 

It is not meant that the three attributes now specified can work 
in separation, or could exist in separation. On the contrary, they 
are implicated to such a degree that the suspension of one would 
destroy the others. Discrimination could not exist without Eeten- 
tiveness ; there would be nothing to retain without Discrimina- 
tion ; and no progress in retention without Agreement. Yet, not- 
withstanding this mutual implication in their working, the three 
processes are logically distinct; each means something quite apart 
from the others. It is as in the combination of extension and 
colour in material bodies ; the properties are inseparable and yet 
distinct. 

The exhaustive discussion of the Intellectual powers turns 
chiefly upon the two last-named attributes, Agreement and 
Retentiveness ; but, as the most interesting applications of- 
Agreement lie among remembered or acquired products, it is 
better to commence with the Retentive or plastic property. 
Next will be given the exposition of Agreement or Similarity. 
A third chapter will be devoted to the cases of Complicated 
mental reproduction. And lastly, some account will be taken 
of the process of forming original constructions, or what is 
termed the Creative or Inventive faculty of the mind. 

3. Certain important uses are served by an accnrate, 
or scientific, knowledge of the Intellectual I'owers. 



USES OF THE STUDY OF THE INTELLECT. 85 

First, There is a natural curiosity to discover the Laws 
that govern the stream of our Thoughts . All the workings of 
nature are interesting, and not least so should be the workings 
of our own minds. 

Secondly, The statement and the explanation of the differ- 
ences of Intellectual Character must proceed upon a know- 
ledge of the attributes and laws of our intelligence. 

Thirdly, The art of Education is grounded on a precise 
knowledge of the retentive or plastic power of the mind. The 
arts of Reasoning and Invention, if such there be, naturally 
connect themselves with the laws of the faculties involved. 

Fourthly, Many important disputes turn upon the deter- 
mination of what parts of our intelligence are primitive, and 
what acquired. Such is the subject of Innate Ideas generally; 
also the questions raised by Berkeley — namely, the Theory of 
Vision, and the doctrine of External Perception. 



CHAPTER L 
EETEISTTIYENESS— LAW OF CONTIGLTITY. 

1. With few exceptions, the facts of Eetentiveness may 
be comprehended under the principle called the Law of 
Contiguity, or Contiguous Adhesion. 

Retentiveness is the comprehensive name for Memory, 
Habit, and the Acquired powers in general. The principle of 
Contiguity has been described under various names, as Hamil- 
ton's law of ' Redintegration ; ' the ' Association of Ideas,' in- 
cluding Order in Time, Order in Place, Cause and Effect. 
The principle may be stated thus : — 

2. Actions, Sensations, and States of Feeling, occurring 
together, or in close succession, tend to grow together, or 
cohere, in such a way that when any of them is afterwards 
presented to the mind, the others are apt to be brought up 
in idea. 

The detail of examples will bring out the various ch^cum- 
stances regulating the rate of growth of the cohesive link. 
Generally, as is well known, a certain continuance, or repeti- 
tion, is necessary to make a firm connexion. 
6 



86 RETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 



MOVEMENTS. 

We commence with tlie association of movements and 
states of muscular activity. Our acquisitions are known to 
comprehend a great many aggregates and sequences of move- 
ments, united with unfailing certainty. We shall see, how- 
ever, that the cliief aggregates of this kind include sensations 
also, and that the case of pure association of movement is not 
frequent, although both possible and occasionally realized. 

3. It is likely that our Spontaneous and Instinctive 
actions are invigorated by exercise. 

The various actians occurring in the round of Spontaneous 
discharges, are likely to become more vigorous, and more 
ready, after they have arisen a number of times ; while In- 
stinctive actions, as walking on all-fours, or sucking, &c., are 
also improved by repetition. 

In the growth of the Will, which involves spontaneous actions, 
something is gained by the greater facility of beginning any 
movement after a certain frequency of occurrence. The hands, 
the voice, the tongue, the mouth, exercise their powers at 
first in mere aimless expenditure of force ; by which they are 
prepared for starting forth to be linked with special feelings 
and occasions. 

4. Movements, frequently Conjoined, become asso- 
ciated, or grouped^ so as to arise in the aggregate, at one 
bidding. 

Suppose the power of walking attained, and also the power 
of rotating the limbs. One may then be taught to combine 
the walking pace with the turning of the toes outward. Two 
volitions are at first requisite for this act ; but, after a time, 
the rotation of the limb is combined with the act of walking, 
and unless we wish to dissociate the two, they go together as 
a matter of course ; the one resolution brings on the combined 
movement. 

Children attempting to walk, must learn to keep their 
balance. This depends on properly aggregated movements ; 
the lifting of the right foot has to be associated with the move- 
ments for making the whole body mcline to the left, and 
obversely. The art of walking includes other aggregates ; the 
lifting of one foot is accompanied with a rising upon the other, 
and with a bending forward of the whole body. The educa- 
tion in walkmg consists in making these aggregates so secure, 



ACQUISITIONS OF MOVEMENTS. 87 

tliat the one movement shall not fail to carry Tv^ith it the 
collaterals. 

Articulate speech largely exemplifies the aggregation of 
muscular movements and positions. A concuiTence of the 
chest, larynx, tongue, and mouth, in a definite group of exer- 
tions, is requisite for each alphabetic letter. These groupings, 
at first impossible, are, after a time, cemented with all the firm- 
ness of the strongest instinct. 

5. We acquire also SuccessioDS of Movements. 

In all manual operations, there occur successions of move- 
ments so firmly associated, that when we will to do the first, 
the rest follow mechanically and unconsciously. In eating, 
the act of opening the mouth mechanically follows the raising 
of the morsel. In loading a gun, the sportsman does not need 
to put forth a distinct volition to each movement of the hands. 

6. It is rare to find an association of movements as 
such, or without the intervention of sensations. 

In most mechanical trains, the sense of the effect of one 
movement usually precedes the next, and makes a link in the 
association. Thus, in loading a gun, the feeling that the car- 
tridge is sent home, precedes, as an essential link, the with- 
drawing of the ramrod. There is, in such instances, a complex 
train of feelings and movements. 

A deaf person speaking would appear to illustrate the se- 
quence of pure movement ; but, even in that case, there is a 
feeling of muscular expenditure. Such a feeling can never be 
absent until the very last stage of habit is reached, the stage 
when the mind is entirely unconscious of the movements gone 
through. A great practical importance attaches to this final 
consummation. It is the point where actions take place, with 
the least efibrt or expenditure of the forces of the brain. The 
class of actions so performed have been named secondary 
automatic, as resembling the automatic or reflex actions — 
breathing, &c. 

Although the learning of successions of movements nearly 
always involves the medium of sensation, in the first instance, 
yet we must assume that there is a power, in the system, for 
associating together movements as such, and that special cir- 
cumstances favour this acquisition. 

7. There are certain conditions that govern the pace of 
acquisition generally. These are (1) Kepetition or Con- 



88 KETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

tiimance, (2) Concentration of Mind, and (3) the Natural 
Adhesiveness of the individual constitution. 

(1) In order to every acquisition, a certain Continnance, 
repetition^ or practice is needed, varying according to circum- 
stances. By repetition, we make up for natural weakness or 
other defects, as in the extra drill of the awkward squad. 

(2) Mental concentration will make a great difi'erence in 
the pace of acquisition. When the whole of the attention is 
given to the work in hand, the cohesive growth is compara- 
tively rapid. Distraction, diversion, remission are hostile to 
progress. 

Concentration, as a voluntary act, depends on the motives. 
If the work is pleasant in act or in prospect, and if no other 
pleasure interferes, the whole mind is gained. This is con- 
centration from the side of Pleasure. Whatever we have a 
stronof likino^ for, we learn with ease. Our Tastes are thus a 
leading element in our acquisitions. 

But concentration may be determined by Pain. The work 
itself being distasteful in comparison of something else, the 
mind revolts from it, until some strong pain is set up in the 
path ; the lesson may not be liked, but the consequences of 
engaging the mind elsewhere may be sufficiently painful to 
neutralize the pleasure. 

Another influence of pain is as mere Excitement, which 
intensifies the mental processes, and impresses on the memory 
whatever objects are present to the mind, giving to things 
disagreeable a persistence in opposition to the will. 

(3) All the facts show that constitutions differ as to power 
of Adhesiveness, under exactly the same circumstances. In 
every class of learners, on every subject, there are the greatest 
inequalities. This IS'atural Adhesiveness usually shows itself 
in special departments — aptitude for languages, for science, 
for music, &c. ; but it also shows itself in a more general form, 
or as applied to things generally. Hence part of it may be 
attributed to an endowment of the system, as a whole ; while 
part depends on local endowments, as, for example, the musi- 
cal ear. 

8. The circumstances favouring the adhesion of move- 
ments in particular may be supposed to be (1) Muscular 
vigour, (2) The Active Temp(3rament, and (3) iluscular 
Delicacy. 

(1) Mere muscular vigour, by favouring the performance 



CONDITIONS OF EETENTIVENESS. 89 

of meclianical exercises, or tlie energy and persistence of mns- 
cular practice, cannot but contribute to progress in the me- 
clianical arts. 

(2) Of equal, if not of greater importance is tlie nervous 
peculiarity tbat prompts to muscular activity, determining a 
profuse and various spontaneity of the bodily movements. 

(3) In tlie muscular system, as in the special senses, there 
may be degrees of delicacy^ shown in nicety of muscular dis- 
crimination. This may be hypothetically connected with a 
higher organization of the ganglia of the active side of the 
brain — the motor centres whence the motor nerves immediately 
emanate. Whenever the test of discrimination shows superior 
muscular endowment, we are entitled to presume a greater 
degree of muscular retentiveness. The analogy of the senses is 
strong on this point, and will be referred to afterwards ; the 
best case being the ear for music. 

9. Acquirement in every form demands a certain 
Physical Vigour. 

The freshness aud vigour of the general system may be 
looked upon as essential to the plastic operation. Fatigue, 
exhaustion, indifferent nourishment, derogate from the powers 
of the learner. The greater physical vigour of early years is 
one, among other reasons, why youth is the season of im- 
provement. 

The mental concentration, or exercise of the Attention, 
necessary to new acquh^ements, is costly and exhausting. 

IDEAL FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT.— THE SEAT OF IDEAS. 

10. The Ideas of Movement may be associated together. 

We may have ideas, or recollections and imaginations, 
of our various activities. We may rehearse, in the thoughts, 
the movements of a dance, or the manipulation of a sailing 
boat. 

11. In regard to Ideas generally, it- is probable, if not 
certain, that the renewed feeling, or idea, occupies the 
same parts, and in the same manner, as the original or 
actual feeling. 

It was vaguely surmised, in former times, that the memory 
of things consisted in storing up images in a certain part of 
the brain, distmct from the places originally affected ; that, in 
actually seeing a building, one portion of the brain is exercised, 



90 KETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

and, in remembering it, a different portion. The facts are op- 
posed to such a concKision. 

In very lively recollection, we find a tendency to repeat the 
actual movements. Thus, in mentally recalling a verbal train, 
we seem to repeat, on the tongue, the very Avords ; the recol- 
lection consists of a suppressed articulation. A mere addition 
to the force or vehemence of the idea, or the withdrawal of the 
restraint of the will, would make us speak out what we speak 
inwardly. IN'ow, the tendency of the idea of an action to be- 
come the action, shows that the idea is already the fact in a 
weaker form. But if so, it must be performing the same 
nervous rounds, or occupying the same circles of the brain, in 
both states. 

The same doctrine must equally apply to the Sensations of 
the Senses, and will derive illustration from them. The mere 
idea of a nauseous taste can excite the reality even to the pro- 
duction of vomiting. The sight of a person about to pass a 
sharp instrument over glass excites the well-known sensation 
in the teeth. The sight of food makes the saliva begin to flow. 
In the mesmeric experiments, this effect is carried still farther ; 
the patient, through the suggested idea of intoxication, simu- 
lates the reality. Persons of weak nerves have been made ill 
actually, by being falsely told that they looked ill. 

So it is with the special Emotions and passions. The 
thought or recollection of anger brings on the same expres- 
sion of countenance, the same gestures, as the real passion. 
The memory of a fright is the fright re-induced, in a weaker 
shape. 

To this doctrine it may be objected, that the loss of eye- 
sight would be the loss of memory of visible things ; that Mil- 
ton's imagination must have been destroyed when he became 
blind. The answer is, that the inner circles of the brain must 
ever be the chief part of the agency both in sensations and in 
ideas. The destruction of the. organ of sense, while rendering 
sensation impossible, can be but a small check upon the inward 
activity; it cuts off. merely the extremity of the coui^se de- 
scribed by the nerve currents. Moreover, the decay of the 
optic sensibility does not impair the activity of the muscles of 
the eye, wherein are embodied the perceptions of visible 
motion, form, extension, &c., which are one half, and not the 
least important half, of the picture. 

12. The tendency in all Ideas to become ActnalitieS; 
according to their intensity, is a source of active impulses 
distinct ifrom the ordinary motives of the AY ill. 



TENDENCIES OF IDEAS TO BECOME ACTUALITIES. 91 

The Will is under tlie two influences— pleasure and pain ; 
being urged to tlie one and from the other. But an idea 
strongly possessed may induce us to act out that idea, even 
although it leads to pain rather than to pleasure. The mes- 
meric sleep shows the extreme instance ; in ordinary sleep, 
also, we are withdrawn from the correcting influence of actu- 
alities, and follow out whatever fancy crosses the view. In 
the waking state, we do not, as a rule, act out our ideas ; they 
are seldom strong enough to neutralize the operation of the 
will. Still the power exists, and is, on occasions, fully mani^ 
fested. 

As an unequivocal instance of the power of an idea to 
generate its actuality, we may quote the infection of special 
forms of crime, and even of self-destruction. The impression 
made on susceptible minds by some notorious example is ofben 
carried out to the full, in spite of the deterring action of the 
usual motives of the Trill. 

The fascination of a precipice is also in point. The specta- 
tor, seeing himself near precipitation, has the act of falling 
so forcibly suggested, that he has to put forth an effort of will 
to resist i\\Q siio^Grestion. 

Temptation to do something forbidden often comes of 
merely suggesting the idea, which is then a power to act itself 
out. In this way, ambition is inflamed, so as to master the 
sober calculation of future happiness. 

The operation of an idea strongly possessed is especially 
prominent in the outgoings of Fear. It is the peculiarity of 
this passion to impress the mind unduly with its object, to 
magnify evil possibilities, and so to exaggerate the idea of 
escape, that one cannot be restrained from acting it out. 

13. In the workings of Sympathy, there seems to be 
the carrying out of an Idea, apart from the usual opera- 
tion of the will. 

If the will be defined the pursuit of pleasure and the 
abstinence from pain, then disinterested conduct, involving 
frequently self-sacrifice, must spring from some other part of 
our nature. Now, as we are able, by means of our own expe- 
rience, to form ideas of other men's pains and pleasures, we 
are disposed, according to the principle in question, to act 
these out, even although we forfeit a certain amount of plea- 
sure, or incur a certain amount of pain. We conceive the 
pain of another man^s hunger, and act out the idea by procur- 
ing for him food, even at some cost to ourselves. 



92 EETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

14. It is a consequence of the doctrine as to the seat 
of revived feelings, that the Idea and the Actiiahty must 
have a great deal in common. 

Memory and Imaginatioii may be described in the lan- 
guage used for sensation, with certain allowances. A person 
vividly recollecting a former transaction, exclaims, ' I now 
see before me." ISText, the delicacy of the senses is likely to 
be reproduced in the recollection and in the imagination. 
Also, for the purposes of the will, in pursuit or in avoidance, 
the idea operates like the actuality. Farther, the same ex- 
haustion of brain, and in the same parts, follows prolonged 
exercise in sensation and in thought. 

15. Feelings of Movement may be associated together. 
Since we can repeat mentally the steps of any complicated 

action, as a dance, we may, in consequence of this mental re- 
petition, strengthen the cohesion of the train of movements. 
Practically, the process is seen at work in our vocal acquire- 
ments. We can acquire traius of language, without repeating 
aloud, although perhaps not quite so well. Children have 
often to learn their lessons by conning them in a whisper, 
which is the next stage to a mere idea. So, in meditating a 
discourse, and fixing it in the memory, without writing, as 
was the practice of Robert Hall, an adhesion takes place be- 
tween ideal movements of articrdation. 

16. The Growth of Associations amongldeal movements 
must be supposed to follow the law of associations among 
the corresponding Actual movements. 

The centres where the connexions are formed being the 
same, the only difference will be the feebler impetus of nerve 
action in the case of the ideal movements. Under great ex- 
citement, this difference will not exist, and the adhesion may 
be equally good in both. 

Hence in any part of the system, where the adhesiveness 
of actual movements is good, that of ideal movements will be 
good also ; and all the circumstances and endowments favour- 
ing one will favour both. 

17. A movement, whether real or ideal, is Mentally 
known as a definite Expenditure of Energy in some Special 
muscle or muscles. 

We must first discriminate degrees of expenditure, and 
next associate the different modes or degrees into grouped 



INDIVIDUAL IDEAS BECOME SELF-SUSTAINING. 93 

situations. A delicate discrimination is tlins tlie condition of 
all retentiveness, as it marks out clearly the distinctive features 
of what is to be retained. To this we must add, as above 
remarked, that nice discrimination is to be regarded as indi- 
cating a superior organization in the centres of muscular 
activity — a higher multiplication of the nervous elements, 
whence arises a corresponding superiority in the plastic power, 
or Retentiveness. 

SENSATIONS OF THE SAME SENSE. 

18. Throughout all the Senses, the associating process 
connects sensations that happen frequently together. 

In the inferior senses, the examples are neither numerous 
nor interesting. We may have a series of Organic pains, 
representing the course of an attack of illness, and remembered 
by the patient. We might also have a tram, of ideas of Taste, 
the first recalling to the mind all the rest ; but there are few 
occasions for acquiring such trains. As regards Smell, there 
might be a succession of odours, regularly encountered in 
going in a particular track, through gardens, &c. ; and if su.ch 
an experience were often repeated, there would be found in the 
memory a cohering train of ideas of smell ; the occurrence of 
one to the mind would suggest the others. 

19. In the same operation that fixes, in the mind, a 
train of ideas, formed from sensations, the individual 
ideas become Self-sustaining. 

In order that the first member of an often repeated train of 
tastes or odours should recall the next, each must be so far 
impressed or engrained that it can subsist of itself, without 
the original, to a greater or less degree of vividness. Before 
the taste of bread recalls the taste and rehsh of butter, usually 
conjoined, we must have tasted butter often enough to be able 
to retain some idea, more or less adequate, of that particular 
taste. This is equally a consequence of the retentive process 
of the mind, and follows all the laws governing the rate of ad- 
hesive growth. 

The simplest sensation that we can have is a complex fact, 
as far as concerns being re tamed. A coherence must be 
effected in the mechanism of the brain, to enable a touch, or 
sound, or an idea of- light, to possess a mental persistence ; 
and the greater the degree of this coherence, in consequ.ence 
of repetition and the other means of retentiveness, the better 
will be the mental conception. 



94 RETENTIVENKSS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

20. The coliesive grouping of Sensations of the same 
sense appears largely in Touch. 

In Tonch, we have great variety of sensations ; the purely 
emotional, — as soft touches and pungent touches ; and those 
entering into intellectual perceptions, — as the feelings of 
roughness, weight, size, form, &c. Associations are formed 
among the different modes of these sensations ; resulting in 
our tactual notions of familiar things. The child accustomed 
to handle a muff, forms an association between its softness, 
its elasticity, and its warmth to the touch ; to these are 
added the muscular elements of size and form. If this aggre- 
gate has been definitely connected in one group, by familiarity 
with the same thing, the experience of one of the qualities 
would recall the whole aggregate. The soft touch would 
make the mind expect everything else. So it is that we 
acquire distinctive notions of all the objects we are accustomed 
to handle ; the lady knows her fan in the dark, the workman 
knows the tool he wants by the first contact ; we each know 
whether we touch the poker or the hearth brush, a cinder or 
an ivory ball, a pen or a piece of string, a book or the cat, the 
table or the mantel- shelf. Every one of these familiar things 
is a definite grouping by plastic association between difierenfc 
modes of touch, some purely tactile, and others muscular. 

Of course, one definite touch will not recall the whole of 
the tactile qualities of a specific object, unless there has been 
an exclusive association. When the cold touch of polished 
marble has been associated with many different forms, it will 
not recall any one in particular. The hand placed on a wooden 
surface tells nothing, because so many known things have the 
same touch ; either a plurality of different objects will be re- 
called, or some one will be singled out by other links of asso- 
ciation, or there will be no revival at all. 

21. In considering the Eate of Acquirement among 
associations of Touch we must take into account, besides 
the general conditions of acquirement, the special character 
of the sense. 

Touch being a two-fold sense, we must refer to the con- 
stituents in separation. 

The purely tactile sensibility, the passive element of touch, 
is, in the scale of intellect, superior to Taste and Smell, inferior 
to Hearing and Sight. This comparative superiority and in- 
feriority must be supposed to attach equally to the discrimi- 



ASSOGlATIO]^rS OF TOUCH. 95 

native power, and to tlie retentiveness (we liave assumed 
these two properties to rise and fall together). 

The other element of Touch is Muscularity ; the weight, 
hardness, size, and form of things, are tested and remembered 
principally by the muscles of the hand and the arm. 

The intellectual character of the muscular feelings is pro- 
bably not the same for all muscles ; hence each set would have 
to be independently judged. We know that the muscles of 
the eye excel in delicacy of discrimination and retentiveness ; 
they would not otherwise be on a par with the optical sensi- 
bility. Probably the muscles of the voice and articulation come 
next, and, after these, the hand and the arm; the difference 
being no doubt related to the comparative supply of nerves, 
and the expansion of the corresponding, centres. 

There may be great individual differences of character in 
respect of tactual endowment. These are principally indicated 
by degTces of delicacy in the manual arts. 

Both in the tactual and in the muscular element, any su- 
perior delicacy will tell upon the worker in plastic material. 
The muscular precision of the hand and the arm is a guarantee 
for nicety of execution in every species of manipulation — with 
the surgeon and the artist, no less than the common artizan. 

22. It is only in the Blind, that we can appreciate the 
natural delicacy, or intellectual susceptibility, of the sense 
of Touch. 

N'one but the blind are accustomed to think of outward 
objects as ideas of Touch ; in the minds of others, the visible 
ideas preponderate, and constitute the chief material of recol- 
lection. A blind workman remembers and discriminates his 
tools by their tactile ideas. The trains of associations that 
determine the order and array of surrounding things are, to 
the blind, trains of ideas of touch, 

23. The associations among Sounds include, besides 
many casual connexions, the two great departments of 
Musical and Articulate Sounds. 

Any two sounds heard together, or in close succession, for 
a number of times, would mutually reproduce each other in 
idea. "When a sound is made in front of an echomg wall, we 
anticipate the echo. 

In Musical training, the individual notes are rendered self- 
sustaining, and are at the same associated in musical suc- 
cessions. One note sounded brinors on the idea of another 



96 TtETENTlVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

that has usually followed it. When a sufficient number are 
given to determine an air, the remaining notes i^ise to the 
mind. The education of an accomplished musician is com- 
posed of many hundi^eds of these successions. 

Besides the general conditions of acquirement, we must 
refer, in this case, to the quality termed the musical ear. 
Although the ear is improvable by cultivation, the basis of 
all great musical skill is a primitive endowment. There must 
be, from the beginning, a comparatively nice discrimination of 
musical tones, for which we may assume the physical basis of 
extensive auditory centres. A bad ear will not distinguish 
one note from the next above it or below it on the scale. A 
good ear will discriminate the minute fraction of a note. 

It must be taken for granted, until the contrary is shown, 
that the delicate feeling of A greement follows Discrimination ; 
and that Retentiveness will follow both. Once for all, there- 
fore, we may assume that delicacy of Discrimination is to be 
accepted as the criterion of all the three intellectual properties. 
Hence, when a sense has an unusual degree of discriminative 
power, there will also be an unusual retentiveness for its 
sensations. 'Not in music alone, therefore, but in everything, 
good memory ^tII accompany acute feeling of difference. 

Articulate sounds are made coherent on the same principle 
as musical sounds. We are familiarized with each distinct 
articulation, and are, at the same time, occupied vdih. com- 
bining them into groups in the complex sounds of words and 
trams of words. In the minds of the uneducated, these con- 
nexions exist by hundreds ; in a cultivated mind, they count 
by thousands. 

The good articulate ear may be, to some extent, a mcdifi- 
cation of the musical ear. In so far as the letters are distin- 
guished by being combinations of musical tones, the two 
sensibilities must be the same. But this applies only to the 
vowels ; the consonants are discriminated by other kinds of 
effect. It would not be in accordance ^dth fact to say, that a 
good musical ear infers a good articulate ear. 

The successions of sounds, both musical and articulate, 
possess the quality termed Cadence or Accent. The ear re- 
members the cadences familiar to it, and reproduces them m 
vocal imitation. The brogue or accent of a province is im- 
pressed on the young ear ; a large variety of cadences enters 
into the more elaborate training of the elocutionist. The ear 
for cadence may be somewhat different from, although con- 
taining points in common with, ilie musical and articulate ears. 



ASSOCIATIONS OF SIGHT. 97 

24 Cohering aggregates and trains of Sight are, by 
pre-eminence, the material of thouglit, memory, and ima- 
gination. 

Sensations of sight are composed of visnal spectra and inns- 
cular feehngs — passive feelings mixed with active. 

While the separate colours and shades are acquiring ideal 
persistence, they are becoming associated together in aggre- 
gates and trains. We cannot produce cases of association of 
colours alone, or without muscular elements, but there are 
many mstances where colour is the predominating fact. The 
splendours of sunrise and sunset, the succession of tints of 
the sky, exemplify the preponderance of colour. The varie- 
gated landscape is an aggregate of coloured masses, which 
may be associated in great part optically. The aspect of 
a city, with its streets, houses, shops, is many- coloured, 
and must be remembered chiefly by the help of associated 
colours. 

On the other hand, in objects with little colour, and with 
sharp outlines, the muscular element predominates, as in a 
building or an interior, in machinery, and, most of all, in the 
forms and diagrams of Geometry, Architecture, Engineering, &c. 

We shall illustrate the adhesiveness, first, in Forms ; 
secondly, in Golotired S^irfaces. 

When the eye follows a circular form, as a ring, the effect 
is principally muscular. The adhesion resides in the active 
centres connected with the muscles of the eye. By these, we 
hold the figures of Geometry, the symbols of the sciences 
generally, outline plans of mechanical structures, the charac- 
teristic forms of all special objects. In the Fine Arts of Sculp- 
tui'e and Architectui-e, form is predominant. 

There is probably a special endowment for the retention of 
visible forms, whose natui^al locality would be the active centres 
of vision. It would show itself in the rapid and extensive 
acquirement of unmeaning symbols, written characters, and 
skeleton outlines, as in maps and diagrams. The Chinese 
language is probably the extreme instance of the acquisition 
of forms. The memory for maps is also a trying instance. 
These cases require the strongest disinterested adhesion. 

In the case of Scientific forms, there may enter the 
scientific interest, determining special concentration of mind. 
Such forms are comparatively few in number, but intensely 
important. 

In regard to Artistic forms, the Artistic interest is a 



98 KETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

prompting to mental concentration ; only sucb. as enter into 
Art would be specially retained. Curves, for their beauty, 
and certain geometric forms, for tlieir symmetry, would be laid 
hold of ; those that have no interest except as symbols would 
be disregarded. 

In Coloured Surfaces, we suppose the colour to be the chief 
fact ; for, although Form can never be absent, the optical 
adhesiveness is the essential consideration. Such are, in addi- 
tion to natural scenes and prospects, highly decorated interiors, 
pictures, assemblies of people, the human face and figure, 
animals, plants, and minerals. 

The endowment for discriminating and remembering 
Colour may well be supposed to be special and distinct. 
Phrenology is justified in supposing a special organ of colour. 
The centres in relation with the optic nerve are probably far 
more expanded and richer in nervous elements, in some consti- 
tutions than in others. A special retentiveness for colour is a 
great determining fact, of character. It not only constitutes a 
facility in remembering scenes, pictures, and coloured objects, 
thus entering into the faculty of the painter and the poet : it 
also leads to a liking for the concrete surface of the world with 
all its emotions and interests, and to a disliking or revulsion 
from the bare and naked symbols, forms, and abstractions of 
science. 

SENSATIONS OF DIFFEKENT SENSES. 

25. Our education involves various connexions among 
Movements, Feelings of Movement, and the Sensations of 
the different senses. 

In the comphcation of actual things, the same object may 
operate upon several senses at once. A bell is ideally retained 
as a combination of touch, sound, and sight. An orange can 
afiect all the senses. 

Movements with Sensations. Our movements are extensively 
associatedwith sensations. Ourvarious actions are mstigatedby 
sensible signs, as names or other signals ; the child's early educa- 
tion comprises the obedience to dii^ection or command. Ani- 
mals also can take on the same acquisition. The notes of 
the bugle, and the signals at sea, are associated with definite 
movements. 

Our locomotive and other movements are incessantly 
attended with changes of our visible environment, and become 
associated with these changes accordingly. Every step for- 
ward alters the visual magnitude of all objects before the eyes ; 



A.ECHITECTUIIAL ASSOCIATIONS. 99 

and of STicli as are near, in a very palpable degree. This is a 
principal part of our acquired perceptions of distance. (See 
Chap. VII.) 

It was already remarked, under Associations of Movement, 
that there are few associations of mere movement ; the sense 
of the effect generally intervenes and accompanies the exertion. 
A man digging does not mechanically put in the spade and 
turn it up ; he, at the same time, sees and feels the results ; 
the sight and the feeling co-operate in directing and guiding 
each movement, and in introducing the one that follows. 

Muscular Ideas with Sensations. We may associate Ideas 
of Force and Movement, resulting from muscular expenditure, 
with Sensations. There are some interesting examples in 
point. We connect the weight and inertia of different kinds 
of material, with the visible appearance, and other sensible 
properties. On looking at a block of stone, at an iron bar, 
or a log of wood, we form a certain ideal estimate of the com- 
parative weights, or of the muscular expenditure requisite to 
move, or support the several masses. This association is gained 
partly by our direct experience, and partly by seeing the mus- 
cular exertions" of other persons ; it becomes at last one of the 
powerful associations that enter into our ideas of external 
things. It is at the basis of our Architectural tastes and de- 
mands. When we see a mass of stone supported on a pedes- 
tal, we form at once an estimate of the sufficiency or insuffi- 
ciency of the support, and are affected pleasantly or unplea- 
santly according to the estimate. By a rapid process of asso- 
ciation, almost like an instinct, we imagine the pressure of a 
block of any given size ; an idea of its gravitating energy is 
constructed out of our own experiences ; and a similar idea 
is formed of the strength of the rope that is to hoist it up, 
and the waggon that is to transport it. The same feeling 
determines our sense of Architectural proportions ; these 
being very different in the case of wood, of stone, and of 
iron ; and would be modified into another shape still, if gold 
were the material employed. From want of familiarity with 
gold in masses, we should be greatly at fault in connecting 
the visible appearance of a block with its weight and inertia. 

Sensations luith Sensations. We may have as many groups 
of combinations as there are possible unions among our senses. 
Organic sensations may be associated with Tastes, Smells, 
Touches, Sounds, Sights ; Tastes with Smells, &c. ; Smells 
with Touches, and so on. The more interesting cases occur 
under the three higher senses. 



100 KETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

Touches are associated with. SonncLs, when the ring of a 
substance suggests its s^jrface to the touch, and vice versa, as 
in discriminating stone, wood, glass, pottery, cloth, &c. 

Touches are associated with Sights, on a very great scale. 
We connect with the visible appearance of every substance 
that we may have frequently handled, its feeling to the touch, 
as soft, hard, rough, smooth, as well as the tactile form and 
tactile magnitude. 

This is the association that Berkeley principally founded 
upon, in explaining the acquired perceptions of 8ight (see 
Chap. YII.). The fact itself is not to be disputed ; we do ac- 
quire associations of singular firmness between visible surfaces 
and their tactile sensations ; the cold, hard smoothness of 
polished marble, the roughness of the fracture of a piece of 
cast iron or steel, the clamminess of a lump of clay, are sug- 
gested rapidly and vividly in the case of all familiar things. 
And if such be the case with the strictly tactile properties 
(where no one contends for an instinctive conjunction), we 
need not wonder at the rapid and vivid suggestion of tangible 
resistance and magnitude. Still, as will be seen, there are 
other experiences required to constitute our associations of 
real distance with its visible signs. 

Sounds are associated mth Sights, on a still greater scale. 
Every characteristic sound emanating from an object of cha- 
racteristic visible appearance, is firmly associated with that 
appearance. We associate the sound not merely with the 
sounding object, but with the distance and position of the 
object. (See Hearing, p. 56.) So that we may be said to 
hear distance as well as to see it ; by both senses, w^e are made 
aware of the locomotive efi'ort that would be required to tra- 
verse the interval between one distance and another. 

We connect every object with its sound when struck ; 
every instrument with its note ; every animal with its cries ; 
every human being with their voice, and even with their cough 
or sneeze. 

Our mother tongue is, in great part, a series of associations 
betw^een sounds (as names) and visible objects. The exten- 
sion to written language embraces the further associations be- 
tween the audible sounds and the printed characters. 

26. In the association of different senses, it is to be 
presumed that the rapidity of the adhesive growth will 
vary with the adhesive quality of each of the senses. 

In the absence of anything to the contrary, we must sup- 



. LOCALIZATION OF BODILY FEELINGS. 101 

pose that when sights and sounds are associated, the progress 
Y/ill depend upon the adhesiveness in sight by itself, and in 
sound by itself. The mother tongue will be learned with 
more rapidity, according as the articulate ear is good, and 
according as the visible associations within themselves are 
good. No other consideration can be assigned from our pre- 
sent knowledge. It does not seem that any barrier is pre- 
sented to the anion of sensations of different senses ; the pro- 
cess is as easy and rapid between two, as in. the sphere of one. 

27. The Localization of our Bodily Feelings is an 
acquired perception. 

Previous to experience, we do not know the locality of any 
bodily sensation — for example, a pressure on the shoulder or 
the toe. But our own body is to us an object of sense ; we 
can see it, and move the hand over it. It is also a seat of 
subjective sensibilities ; it undergoes changes attended with 
pleasure, and with pain. When we see the hand touching a 
part, we couple the objective or pictorial aspect with a spe- 
cial tactile feeling ; if the hand is transferred to another 
part, the altered pictorial aspect is connected with the new 
contact. This is the beginning of our local associations with 
the parts of the body, and is the means of enabling us to 
assign the locality of any part that is occasioning a subjective 
feeling. 

Some explanation is necessary here. How should the same 
pressure, causing the same feeling, be recognized sometimes 
in one spot, and sometimes in another ? The quality of a 
sensation may be the same in two cases, yet we may learn to 
localize them differently. On this point, we can only assert 
the fact, and surmise, that it is physically supported by the 
independence of the nerves distributed over the different 
parts ; an independence already assumed for the feeling of 
plurality of contacts, as described under Touch. The nerves 
of touch in the right forefinger are so far distinct from the 
nerves of the left forefinger, that a separate track or line of 
association can be formed between each and the movements 
that determine us to look to the right or to the left. We 
seem to have qualitative sameness of sensation with artificial 
or associated difference. 

We are best able to localize the feelings connected with 
the surface, because its changes are accessible to observation. 
The deep-seated parts can be got at, only when they are 
brought into some relation with the surface ; as when pres- 



102 llETENTIVEXESS — LAAV OF CONTIGUITY. 

sure on tlie stomacli or the liver modifies a feeling supposed 
to be connected with the part ; or as when local treatment 
soothes an h'ritation. 

28. Our body occupies, as it were, a position between 
the subject mind and the object w^orld at large. Atten- 
tion to our body is an object state, but with strong subject 
associations. 

By gazing on things external to our body, we are in. a 
truly object attitude ; by gazing on any part of the skin, we 
bring up subject feelings. B}^ imagining the local appearances 
of a pain, we may almost reahze it physically. This is one of 
the connexions of idea and reality, occurring in an exaggerated 
form under the mesmeric sleep. IMr. Braid used the fact to 
induce healthy actions on diseased organs. It is scarcely pos- 
sible to gaze intently for a long time on any part of the body 
without inducing subjective feelings in reference to it ; and 
these carry with them actual changes in the part. 

29. Associated differences in sensations alike in quality 
may occur, not only in Touch, but also in Sight, and in 
Muscular Movements. 

The foregoing remarks apply to Touch. The same is true 
of Sight. A sensation of light may be qualitatively the same 
as another ; but, by arising through diflPerent parts of the 
retina, they are recogniized as difierent ; they become associ- 
ated with different movements. If two twins are so alike 
that we cannot distinguish them, some variation is made in 
then' dress to prevent confusion. In the same way, sensations 
through different parts of the retina are made distinct by their 
alliances. One requires an upward motion to place it in the 
centre of vision, another a do^vnward ; one a larger, and an- 
other a smaller sweep, to attain the same position. 

As regards the muscles likewise, we have to assume a 
sense of difference, not due to quality, but to local seat. It 
may be the same as regards the feeling itself, whether we 
raise the right arm or the left ; but the two feelings enter into 
distinct alliances with other feelings not the same. 

ASSOCIATES AVITII TLEASUIIE AND PAIX. 

30. By means of contiguous association, states of 
Pleasure and Pain can, to some extent, persist, or be re- 
produced, without the original stimulus. 



ASSOCIATIONS OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 10:> 

Tlie extending of association to states of pleasure and pain, 
or states of feeling, or emotion generally, mnst render it a great 
power as regards onr happiness. By a reference to the facts, 
we can ascertain how far the principle operates in this direc- 
tion. A familiar example is furnished by our likings for objects 
and places, after long connexion with them. 

The pleasures of the Senses are usually reflected by things 
that are their causes, or by certain regular accompaniments. 
Thus we connect the enjoyment of exercise with, our instru- 
ments of sport or gymnastic ; the pleasures of repose with an 
easy chair, a sofa, or a bed ; and the pleasure of riding with a 
horse and carriage. The sight of food, and its preparation, 
recalls something of the delight of eating ; the scantily in- 
dulged child is fascinated by the mere view of the pastry- 
cook's window. The representation of fragrant flowers gives 
an agreeable recollection of the fragrance. 

The pains of the Senses could be still more decisively ap- 
pealed to. All objects that have severely pained us are painful 
to encounter. It takes a certain eflbrt, to overcome the re- 
pugnance to the instruments of a severe surgical operation. 

It cannot be contended that such associated pleasures and 
pains are individually of any great force, as compared with 
the originals; the fractional value of each echo is but small. 
But a total result, very far from insignificant, may be gained, 
by accumulating around us a great many things associated 
with our pleasures, and reflecting a number of our happy 
moments. The sportsman's trophies, the traveller's curiosities, 
the naturalist's collections made by himself, the student's 
prizes, the engineer's models, are able to revive an occasional 
glow of foregone excitement. 

31. The law of tKis association may be assumed to 
accord with the case of different senses (§ 26). We have 
already assumed that there may be a good, or a bad, 
memory for pleasure as such, and for pain as such ; while, 
in regard to special modes of pleasure and pain, as in the 
several senses, the retentiveness will vary with the good- 
ness of the sense in other respects. 

We have formerly seen that a full and accurate memory 
for pleasure and for pain is the intellectual basis, both of pru- 
dence as regards self, and of sympathy as regards others. 
This may be a general feature of the character, applicable to 
pleasures and pains as such. Still, we must suppose the 
general power greatly modified according to the class or local 



104 RETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

ongin. A high endowment for colour will naturally include 
the retentiveness for the pleasures and the pains of colour. 
So, the circumstances that direct attention upon any sense will 
impress, not only its intellectual elements, but its pleasures 
and pains. 

The revival of a foregone pleasure by force of memory 
must be measured by the amount of change it makes on the 
present condition of the mind, as otherwise occasioned. In a 
happy mood, we are liable to bappy recollections, and repel 
the opposite; but in this case, the pleasurable state represents 
the present influence, and not the past. 

32. The Special Emotions, by being directed habitually 
on the same object, become Affections. 

After the feeling of Love or Tenderness has been often 
aroused in connexion with the same person, a habitual or cus- 
tomary regard is induced, of greater power than the original 
attraction. The memories of the "past then add their power 
to heighten the present impression. This influence, however, 
is chiefly manifested in neutralizing the deadening influence 
of familiarity. The recollected warmth of past moments keeps 
up a glow, when the present stimulation has lost its influence. 
Past-associations of tender feeling will even overcome causes 
of positive dislike. 

So, Anger repeated generates hatred. Fear may take on a 
habitual, and thence more aggravated form. The Egotistic 
passions are notably strengthened, after having often run in the 
same channel without opposition. The religious sentiment is 
converted into an afiection, by being made frequently to arise 
in connexion with the object of worship. 

33. The Emotions may spread themselves over col- 
lateral and indifferent objects. 

We have here a more testing case of association. The acci- 
dental connexions with the objects of our love, anger, fear, 
egotism, suffice to recall the feelings, and have a value on that 
account. Hence tokens of friendship, relics, places, acquire a 
deep hold of our affections. 

This is carried to the. utmost in religion. Holy places, 
symbols, rites, formalities, language, reflect and magnify the 
feelings towards the main object of worship ; and the difficulty 
ever has been to keep them from wholly usurping, by their 
sensuous f;aciiities, the place of the unseen Deity. 

Human authority avails itself of such associations, in order 



INTEREST OF MEANS TO ENDS. 105 

to extend its influence. Official robes and symbols, a cere- 
monial of obeisance and deference, solemnities in the investi- 
ture to office, forms observed in degrading and punishing, 
have the effect of diffusing the respect for authority in civil 
society. The Romans, who were the greatest inventors in the 
substance of law, were also the most attentive to its forms ; 
such attention being partly the cause, and partly the effect, of 
their great regard to authority in the worst of times. 

Those formalities that have an intrinsic expressiveness, as 
bending, prostration, passing under the yoke, are necessarily 
more impressive than what is intrinsically unmeaning. 

34. Association transfers the interest of an End of 
pursuit to the Means. 

The familiar example of this is mojiey. Allied in the first 
instance with the delights that it obtains, and the relief from 
numerous pains, it becomes at last an object of affection in 
itself, and is preferred, in its unemployed state, to all pur- 
chasable gratifications. 

The circumstances that favour the transference are such as 
these : — Money is a tangible, measurable, permanent posses- 
sion; the pleasures obtained by it being often fugitive, are apt to 
leave a feeling of regret, as if they had cost too much. The 
mind easily learns to derive more satisfaction from the per- 
manent possibility, than from the perishing actuality ; espe- 
cially such minds as are more susceptible to fear for the future 
than to present enjoyment. 

The influence of early penury and privation in disposing to 
avarice is of itself an example of associated feeling, as well as 
a contributing cause to the love of money unspent. 

The accessions of distinction and power, attached to the 
possession of wealth, necessarily enrich the agreeable associa- 
ciations connected with it. 

The feeling of Property, in its full comprehension, contains 
a mass of blended sentiment, and of piled-up associations, 
that can scarcely be tracked out in their detail. The things 
that serve so many of the primary uses of life, become also 
the subject of mingled pride and affection. Property in land 
has charms of its own ; it is an impressive object to the eye 
and to the mind, and involves both present influence, and 
the memory of ancient privileges. The possession of a spot 
of land is the most powerful of all known motives to 
industry. 



106 KETENTIVENESS — LAW OP CONTIGUITY. 

Another example of means converted into ends by trans- 
ferred feeling is the attachment to forms of business, as book- 
keeping, legal and technical formalities, even after they have 
ceased to answer their ends. This is an element in the con- 
servation of laws and formalities whose spirit has evaporated. 

The regard to truth is, and onght to be, an all-powerful 
sentiment, from its being entwined in a thousand ways with 
the welfare of human society. We are not to be surprised, if 
an element of such importance as a means, should be often 
regarded as an absolute end, to be pursued irrespective of con- 
sequences, whether near or remote. 

;^5. Many objects of Fine Art derive their charm from 
associations. 

Fine Art contains effects intrinsically pleasing, as sweet 
and harmonious sounds ; colours and their harmonies ; curved 
lines ; proportions in general. 

Other effects are due to association with pleasing qualities. 
Thus, the hues and complexion of health are not the most 
pleasing colours intrinsically. There is nothing in breadth of 
chest, development of muscle, size of bone, to give a primitive 
delight in connexion with the manly figure ; but the connexion 
of these qualities with physical power gives them an adventi- 
tious charm. A large cranial development would not be in- 
terestinor in itself; viewed as disproportion, it might be even 
nnpleasing But as indicating mental power it is agreeable to 
behold. 

The lustre of a polished surface is intrinsically pleasing ; 
there is a farther pleasure when it is connected with ease in 
machinery, or with cleanliness in household manag^ement. 

The celebrated theory of Alison consisted in attributing all 
the pleasures of Beauty, to associations with primary modes 
of the agreeable ; which primary modes, would of course not 
themselves be admitted into the sesthetic circle. The follow- 
ing out of this theory led the author to collect examples of 
borrowed or associated emotions, although in many of his 
instances, primitive effects could be assigned. 

Th^ following are some of his illustrations for the Sublime. 
' All sounds are in general subli:me, which are associated with 
ideas of great Power or Might ; the Noise of a Torrent ; the Fall 
of a Cataract ; the Uproar of a Tempest ; the Explosion of Gun- 
powder ; the Dashing of the Waves, &c.' Most of these sounds, 
however, produce a strong effect by their intensity and volume, 
without regard to what they suggest. More in point are the fol- 
lowing. ' That the Notes or Cries of some animals are Sublime, 



FINE ART ASSOCIATIONS. 107 

every one knows : the Eoar of the Lion, the Growling of Bears, 
the HowKng of Wolves, the Scream of the Eagle. In all these 
cases, those are the notes of animals remarkable for their strength, 
and formidable for their ferocity.' As illustrations of Beauty, he 
gives the following : — ' The Bleating of a Lamb is beautiful in a 
fine day in spring ; the Lowing of a Cow at a distance, amid the 
scenery of a pastoral landscape in summer. The Call of a Goat 
among rocks is strikingly beautiful, as expressing wildness and 
independence. The Hum of the Beetle is beautiful on a fine 
summer evening, as appearing to suit the stillness and repose of 
that pleasing season. The tv/itter of the swallow is beautiful in 
the morning, and seems to be expressive of the cheerfulness of 
that time.' 

36. The Language of the Feelings, both in their natural 
manifestations, and in their verbal expression, has to be 
acquired. 

The meaning of the smile and the frown is learnt in 
infancy by observing what circumstances they go along with. 
The various modifications of the features, tones, and gestures 
for pleasure, pain, love, anger, fear, wonder, are connected 
with known occasions that show what they mean. Animals 
understand this language. There is a certain intrinsic effi- 
cacy in some modes of expression, as when soft and gentle 
tones are used for affection, and harsh, emphatic utterances 
for anger ; but the play of the features has no original mean- 
ing, it must be understood by experience. 

Verbal expression- greatly enlarges the compass of the 
language of the feelings. Every emotion has its charac- 
teristic forms of speech, expressing its shades with very 
great delicacy. Poets, who have to depict and excite the 
emotions, require an unusual command of these forms, and of 
all the images and associated circumstances that have the 
power to resuscitate the varieties of feeling. 

37. The Signs of Happiness in others have a cheering 
effect on ourselves. 

It is a part of our pleasures to see happy beings around us, 
and especially those that have the power of expressing their 
feelings in a lively manner. Children and animals, in their happy 
moods, impart a certain tone of gaiety to a spectator. On the 
other hand, the wretched, the downcast, and the querulous, are 
apt to chill and depress those in their company. There is a 
satisfaction in merely beholding, or even in imagining, the appear- 
ances and accompaniments of superior happiness, which probably 
accounts in part for the disposition to do homage to the wealthy, 
the powerful, the renowned, and the successful among mankind. 



108 EETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

38. The happiness of our later life is in great part 
made up of the pleasurable memories of early years. 

The early period of life, so favourable to acquirement 
generally, is adapted to the storing up of pleasures and pains. 
The sauie pleasure, happening in youth and in middle age, 
will not be equally remembered as a cheering association in 
advanced life. The joys of early years have thus an additional 
value. A pinched, severe, and ascetic bringing-up will sen- 
sibly depress the tone of the whole future life ; scarcely any 
amount of subsequent good fortune will suffice to redeem the 
waste. 

39. In the Moral Sentiment, association counts for a 
share, although the extent of the influence is variously 
estimated. 

It is only in accordance with all the other facts of asso- 
ciated feelings, that if a certain kind of conduct, say theft, or 
evil speaking, is constantly made the subject of punishment, 
censure, or disapprobation, an associative growth will be 
formed between the conduct and the infliction of pain ; and 
the individual will recoil from it with all the repuo^nance 
acquired during this conjunction between it and painful feel- 
ings. The general principle is confirmed by the actual facts ; 
those that have received a careful moral education are almost 
as superior, in their moral conduct, to the offspring of 
dissolute parents, as the educated man is to the uneducated 
in any other respect. 

The conditions of progress in these moral acquirements 
are worthy of being specified. The natural and predisposing 
endowments are the good retentiveness for pleasure and 
pain generally, constituting the natural gift of Prudence, 
and the tendency to enter into the pleasures and pains of 
others (called Sympathy). To these must be added, as a 
negative condition, the moderate degree of the counter im- 
pulses (which will be specified in another place). General 
retentiveness would apply to this acquirement. Repetition, 
or assiduous iteration, must co-operate under circumstances 
favourable to the impressiveness of the lesson : which circum- 
stances vary according as the associations are intended to be 
chiefly of fear, or of love. Moreover, for moral discipline as 
for everything else, a certain portion of the life and the 
thoughts must be left free from other pressing cares and 
acquisitions. 



FEELINGS BlilNG UP THEIR OBJECTS. 109 

The association between objects and feelings also enables 
feelings to bring up their associated objects. This bond, how- 
ever, rarely operates singly ; an emotion, as love, anger, or fear, 
is not usually associated with one object in particalar ; when 
it is so, it is able to suggest the object. Most generally, the 
association with feeling is one determining link among others, 
in a compound association. 

ASSOCIATIONS OF VOLITION. 

40. In Volition, there is involved a process of con- 
tignous association between specific actions and states of 
feeling. 

This is the third element in the growth of the Will, as 
already described ; Spontaneity and Self-conservation being 
the two other elements. The law of Self-conservation would 
determine the continuance of an action that feeds a pleasure, 
and the abatement of an action concurring with pain; but 
does not enable us to begin a specific movement that would 
bring pleasure or remove pain. This is believed to be at first 
a fortuitous concurrence, made to adhere after a certain 
amount of repetition. 

When the mature will is regarded in its whole compass, it 
contains a wide range of successive growths, the earliest 
being attended with the greatest difiiculties. These will be 
traced, once for all, in the department of the Will. 

NATURAL OBJECTS. 

41. Our permanent EecoUections, or Ideas, of the Con- 
crete objects of external nature, consist of associated sen- 
sible qualities. 

The concrete combinations that we call natural objects, in 
most instances, afiect a plurality of senses. The distant starry 
sphere, reveals itself only to sight ; but all terrestrial things, in 
some form or other, appeal to several senses. A piece of 
quartz, besides being seen, has a characteristic touch ; an 
orange has taste and odour in addition. 

The present case, therefore, merely applies the association 
of a plurality of senses to the individual things making up the 
object world (the conjunctions or groupings of things will be 
viewed separately). The complete image of a mineral, plant, 
or animal, is the enduring association of all its sensible im- 
pressions, the lead being taken by sight. 



110 RETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

The conditions of rapid and abundant acquirement in ttis 
region of things are, — the adhesiveness of the senses, and 
chiefly of sight, and the circumstances that determine atten- 
tion or concentration of mind. 

42. The Naturalist mind represents the maximum of 
disinterested associations. 

The purpose of the Naturahst is, not selective, but ex- 
haustive ; whatever be the department that he apphes himself 
to, he notices every species belonging to it. In order to 
lighten the load of detail, and for other reasons, he studies 
classification and orderly method ; but, notwithstanding the 
utmost economy, his mind must retain a vast number of the 
sensible aggregates constituting the specific objects of the 
natural world. He must possess a high degree of sensible, 
and especially visual, retentiveness ; his turn of mind must be 
objective, or towards the exercise /of the senses ; and his life 
must be largely engrossed by the exercise of observation. He 
must not have any strong emotional likings, of the nature of 
preference ; having to give an account of everything that 
exists, because it exists, his main delight should be to attain 
impartiality and exhaustive completeness ; he should be espe- 
cially charmed by the arts of classification and method adapted 
to this end. 

43. In minds generally, the associations of natural 
objects are generally ruled by the feelings. 

iSText to frequency, or familiarity of encounter, and often 
before it, in point of associating^ efficacy, is the interest awak- 
ened in objects either by their striking qualities, or by their 
uses in the economy of life. The one is the artistic preference, 
and the other the industrial. The gems, the more attractive 
flowers, shrubs, and trees, the animals distinguished for their 
imposing qualities, are singled out for recollection, in prefer- 
ence to the indiflerent specimens of each kind. And still 
more universally stimulating to the attention is the influence 
of our wants, uses and conveniences, our occupations and pur- 
suits. 

NATUIL^L AND HABITUAL CONJUNCTIONS. 

44. The things habitually or frequently conjoined ni 
our experience are conjoined in our recollection. 

The things about us that maintain fixed places and rela- 
tions become connected in idea, as they are in reality ; and 
the mind thus reflects the habitual environment. The house 



VARIEGATED IMAGEKY OF THE WORLD. Ill 

we live in, wifh its furniture and arrangements, t"he street, 
town, or rural scene that we encounter daily, by their inces- 
sant iteration, cohere into abiding recollections, any one part 
easily bringing all the rest to the mind's view. Our know- 
ledge of such familiar objects is made up of the connexion of 
each with its associated objects. Our knowledge of a man or 
woman includes the external circumstances constantly con- 
joined with him or her — locality, family, and occupation. 
The conditions favouring the adhesiveness are E-epetition and 
special Interest in what is near ourselves. 

For the easy retention of the variegated imagery of the 
world, the prime requisite is powerful retentiveness for Colour. 
This gives to the mind a pictorial character, a grasp of the 
Concrete of nature, with all the emotional interests thence 
arising. It is required by the Naturalist, and is indispensable 
to the Painter and to the Poet. Also, in large operations, 
involving the external world, as in the military art, 
engineering, the laying out of towns, plantations and gardens, 
the visual endowment is the predominating circumstance ; 
while the optical, or colour element, is still more important 
than the element of form. 

45. Among aggregates or conjunctions, may be in- 
cluded Maps, Diagrams, and Pictorial Eepresentations. 

These artificial conjunctions are a large part of our higher 
knowledge ; they bring to view, by a medium of representa- 
tion, what we have no access to, in the reality. The reten- 
tiveness for them follows the same laws, and is influenced by 
the same conditions. According as they depend upon light 
and shade and colour, on the one hand, or upon outline form, 
on the other, they exercise the optical, or the muscular ad- 
hesiveness of the sight. When the complicacy is great, as in 
a map, or a drawing, the varieties of light and colour are the 
main fact ; in mere skeleton diagrams, visible form is the 
principal. The special interest varies according to circum- 
stances. To the mind of Dr. Arnold, a map had intense fas- 
cination ; it was suggestive of the multifarious human interest 
of his recollections of history. 

SUCCESSIONS. 

46. The phenomena of the woi4d may be divided into 
the Co-existing and the Successive, although, so far as the 
mind is concerned, the generic fact is Succession. 



112 RETENTIVENESS — L^.W OF CONTIGUITY. * 

If we except such cases as — complex and coinciding mus- 
cular movements, the concurrence of sensations, through 
different senses, at the same moment, and our mixed or 
blended emotions, — our mental perceptions are all successive ; 
we must shift the attention from point to point in viewing a 
landscape, and must make a corresponding series of jumps, 
even in the recollection. Co-existence, as we have seen, is 
an artificial growth, formed from a certain peculiar class of 
mental successions. The subjective mind, in its power of 
attention, is single and confined; it overtakes the object 
world, only bj movement in time. 

Still, after Co-existence has been established as something 
distinct, we recognize, as its contrast, phenomena of Succes- 
sion. All such phenomena, if by their uniformity or regu- 
larity, they are iterated to the view, give rise to a corre- 
sponding association in our ideas. 

Successions of Cycle. The successions that perform a 
cycle, as day and night, the moon's phases, the seasons of the 
year, the routine of occupations and professions — are en- 
grained on our recollection, and make part of our expectation 
of the future. 

Successions of Evolution. These are chiefly exemplified in 
living beings. It is the very nature of organized life to evolve 
itself through a series of changes ; and this series, which is 
characteristic for different species, enters into our knowledge 
of living beings. To know a plant we must know it at every 
stage. A certain number of observations made upon each 
kind gives coherence in the mind to the successive aspects. 
Wherever we have any special interest, as in farming, gar- 
dening, rearing stock, we become acquainted with every phase 
in the order of development. The evolution of the human 
being is impressed in our mind by repetition, and by the 
quickening stimulus of our interest in humanity. Evolution 
farther applies to the course of disease, to any long operation, 
as a process of law, and to the history of nations. When 
there is a slight uncertainty in the issue, the additional interest 
of plot may be roused. 

Apart from the special interest in the unwinding of the 
future, the associations of evolution are, in principle, not 
materially different from the associations of still life. As 
regards both Cycles and Evolutions, the laws or conditions of 
adhesion are the same *as has been repeatedly stated above, 
in connexion with the aspects of the outer world. A more 
definite peculiarity belongs to the successions next to be 
named. 



IMPRESSIVENESS OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 113 

Cause and Effect Leaving out of view, for the present, 
strict scientific causation, we may advert to what is commonly 
regarded as cause and efiect, namely, a sudden and impressive 
change ; as when a blow is followed by a noise and a frac- 
ture. A large part of our knowledge of nature is made up of 
these successions. 

According to the general principle of Relativity, or 
Change, we are impressed in proportion to the intensity and 
the suddenness of any efiect. So marked and powerful are 
some efiects, that one experience is remembered for life. The 
explosion of gunpowder, the cutting away of a support to some 
heavy body, the extinction of a life, — are so pungent and ex- 
citing, that a second occurrence is unnecessary to stamp the 
fact on the memory. The order of nature, in so far as com- 
posed of these more sudden efiects, is rapidly learnt. 

The associations of things with their uses, or practical ap- 
plications, involves the stimulus of cause and efiect, together 
with the farther interest of utility. A lever in itself is an un- 
exciting visible object ; in operation, it produces the excite- 
ment of change, and the gratification arising from a useful 
end. Furniture, tools, and implements generally, are, in their 
ideas, aggregates of visible appearance and tangible qualities, 
together with their superadded appearances when in use. 

The scientific properties of objects, brought out by experi- 
ment, or observed in the course of nature, often involve the 
most startling efi'ects, and are thereby quickly impressed upon 
the mind. The distinguishing property of oxygen, to support 
combustion, is for ever remembered by means of the experi- 
ment of combustion in the pure gas. The properties of a salt 
that afiect the senses strongly, are learnt at once. The de- 
composition of light by the prism is one of those startling 
appearances that the stupidest person will remember through 
the mere force of the sensation. 

The Efiects produced by our own agency are additionally 
impressive. The antecedent in this case is our expended 
energy, whose familiarity makes it the type of all causation. 
There is nothing so well remembered by us, as the results of 
our own actions ; we possess the cause in ourselves, and 
there is occasionally added the charm of pride or complacency. 
Hence, in studying natural processes, we succeed best by mak- 
ing the observations and experiments for ourselves. 

The most impressive part of our knowledge of living beings 
— men and animals — consists in seeing them, now as acting, 
and now as acted on. The efiects that they produce upon 



114 EETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

outward things, and the effects that outward agents produce 
upon them, are remembered by us under the stimalus of 
movement and change. There is a highly complex interest in 
watching the movements of our fellow men ; the mere excite- 
ment of change and effect is a part of the case ; our sym- 
pathies, antipathies, fears, admiration, and other emotions, 
lend impressiveness to the display. Thus, what may be called 
the ohject part of our knowledge of human nature, depends, in 
the first place, on our visible or pictorial retentiveness, and, in 
the next place, on our susceptibility to the various feelings 
awakened by the manifestations of humanity. 

MECHANICAL ACQUISITIONS. 

We have now touched on the chief classes of things asso- 
ciated under Contiguity. To give the principles in another 
light, we will allude to the recognized departments of 
acquisition. 

Under Mechanical Acquisitions, we include the whole of 
handicraft industry and skill, as well as the use of the bodily 
members in the more obvious and universal actions of daily 
life. Whether for self-preservation and bodily comfort, for 
industry, or for sport and recreation, we have to be educated 
into a number of bodily aptitudes. 

47. In Mechanical Acquirements, the conditions are : 
(1) The endowments of the Active Organs ; (2) tlie deli- 
cacy of the Sense concerned ; and (3) the special Interest. 

(1) The endowments of the Active Organs are, first, mere 
muscular vigour and strength, which we must assume as a 
requisite, if only as bringing about persistency in exertion. 
Secondly, we may assume as a separate fact, involving the 
nerve centres, great Spontaneity, or the disposition to put forth 
muscular activity, which does not always go along with mus- 
cular development. Thirdly, and most vital of all, is the still 
deeper peculiarity shown in the Perception of Graduated 
Muscular expenditure and the retentiveness for muscular 
groupings. 

The first and second elements by themselves would deter- 
mine the Active Temperament — the disposition and avidity for 
bodily occupation, and the consequent readiness to apply to 
all pursuits giving scope to this prompting. The third pecu- 
liarity would most specifically contribute to the rapidity of 
acquirement in the skilled exercise of the bodily organs. 

(2) The delicacy of the special Sense concerned in the art, 



CONDITIONS OF MECHANICAL ACQUIKEMENTS. 115 

is of equal, if not of greater, impoi'tance. If it is to produce 
efiects of tactile delicacy, — as in surface polish, or soft consis- 
tency, — a nice touch is requisite ; if the work is judged by 
colour, the optical part of sight is demanded ; if to produce 
musical or articulate effects, the ear is involved. 

No amount of flexibility or compass of the active organ 
will enable us to rise above our discrimination of the effect pro- 
duced ; and an inferior flexibility will be greatly extended by 
the effort to comply with a delicate perception. Moreover, 
the associations of mechanical skill are, as has been seen, a 
mixture of grouped muscular movements and situations with 
sensible impressions ; and the importance of the sensible part 
has been shown by the failure of the other connexions on its 
being withdrawn. 

(3) The special Interest in the work may flow from 
various sources. The possession of the active endowments is 
an inducement to exercise them, and all exercise within the 
scope of one's powers is agreeable ; while superiority is still 
more agreeable. Then, as regards the Sense : a sensibi- 
lity highly developed, say for colour, is a source of pleasure, 
as well as of discrimination. Besides these modes of interest, 
growing out of the possession of the natural aptitudes, there 
may be adventitious sources. It not unfrequently happens 
that a charm attaches to something not within the compass of 
our aptitudes. We ma}^ have sufficient musical ear to enjoy 
music, but not to acquire the musical art ; and the same with 
colour. We then have a sort of admiration for a power that 
gives us a pleasure, and that we do not possess. Finally, 
whatever circumstances give an artificial value to mechanical 
acquirements, incline our devotion to them, and so facilitate 
our progress. 

48. In the conduct of mechanical training, regard is to 
be had to the vigour and freshness of the system ; and the 
exercises must be continued long enough to bring the 
energies into full play. 

The physical vigour and freshness, both of the moving 
organs, and of the senses, being a prime requisite, mechanical 
drill is most effectual in the early hours of the day, and after 
the refreshment of meals. The exercise should be continued 
long enough to draw the circulation and the nervous agency 
copiously towards the organs exercised ; at the outset of an 
operation, there is both a stiffness of the parts and a feeling 
of fatigue, both transitory ; the blood as yet has not found its 



116 KETENTIVENESS — LA.W OF CONTIGUITY. 

way to tbe members engaged. When, at a later stage, genuine 
fatigue comes on, the exercise should cease; the cohesive 
power is then at a minimum. In the army, recruits are 
drilled three times a-day — early morning, after breakfast, and 
after dinner — for an hour and a half to two hours each time. 
The apprentice at a trade learns by fits and snatches, and 
mixes up the performance of work with the acquisition of 
new powers. The pains special to the learner are of two 
sorts — fatigue of the attention, and the exhaustion caused by 
repeated trials and failures, 

ACQUISITIONS IN LANGUAGE. 

49. First, Oral Language. This acquisition involves 
an active endowment — Articulation by the Voice ; and a 
sense — the Ear. 

The beginnings of articulation, belong to the early stage of 
the voluntary acquirements. The child must first arrive at 
the power of articulating single letters and syllables ; these 
are then united into words ; and words are conjoined into 
sentences. 

As in the case of the Active organs for mechanical acquisi- 
tion generally, we must assume as the conditions of articulate 
cohesiveness, (1) the muscular vigour of the larynx and asso- 
ciated members, (2) the vocal spontaneity, and (3) most im- 
portant of all, the special discrimination and retentiveness 
attaching to the vocal movements, connected, we may suppose, 
with the high organization of the allied motor centres. 

Next, is the delicacy of the Ear for Articulate Efiects, 
implying both discrimination and retentiveness, the first being 
accepted as a criterion of the second. This endowment may 
be looked upon as related to the special nerve centres of hear-" 
ing (on the passive or ingoing side of the brain). 

When these two natural endowments stand high, the 
acquisition of words and of verbal sequences will proceed with 
proportionate rapidity. If there be a good general adhesive- 
ness in addition, the progress will be still greater. Moreover, 
language is the acquisition of words, not by themselves, 
but in association with things. Hence, the next condition : — 

50. As language is an association of names wdtli 
objects or meanings, we niust include, as a condition, the 
law of heterogeneous adhesion. 

That is to say, we are to look to the goodness of the asso- 



SPECIAL INTEREST IN LANGUAGE. 117 

ciations (inter se) of speech on the one hand, and of the 
objects named on the other, as formerly explained. We 
learn much sooner the names of things that impress us, than 
of those that do not. Each man's vocabulary is made up, by 
preference, of the names of the objects that interest himself ; 
the Naturalist knows more names of his own department than 
of other departments. 

51. Besides the mere vocabulary, Language includes a 
great number of definite arrangements of words, with a 
view to its various ends, and subject to grammatical and 
other laws. 

We have not only to name things, but to make affirma- 
tions aboat them, and, in other ways to unite or compose 
consecutive statements. These forms may be exceedingly 
numerous and varied for the same meaning or purpose. Their 
ready acquisition is almost exclusively governed by the cir- 
cumstances of pure verbal adhesion. The fluent orator, the 
diffuse and illustrative writer, the poet, must excel in mere 
verbal abundance, irrespective of the limits of the subject 
matter. 

52. While the acquisition of language must depend, in 
the first instance, upon the opportunities of hearing and 
speaking, the effect of Eepetition is greatly modified by 
special interest. 

Of the mass of language that passes through the ear, only 
a selection is retained, and that selection, although partly de- 
pending on iteration, is also greatly dependent on our interest 
in the subjects, and our liking for special modes of describing 
the same subject. 

A man's vocabulary will show who he has kept company 
with, what books he has studied, what departments he knows ; 
it will show farther his predominating tastes, emotions, or 
likings. We see in Milton, for example, his peculiar erudi- 
tion, and also his strong fascination for whatever was large, 
lofty, vast, powerful, or sublime. In Shakespeare, the ad- 
hesiveness for language as such, was so great, that it seemed 
to include every species of terms in nearly equal proportions. 
Only a very narrow examination enables us to detect his pre- 
ferences, or his lines of study, and veins of more special 
interest. 

Many terms and forms of language are permanently en- 
grained by some purely accidental concentration of the rnind, 



118 RETENTIVEISESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

or awakenirig of attention. Thus, when we happen to have 
felt very much the want of a word, before being told it, the im- 
pression is a durable one. Any interesting circumstance attend- . 
ing -the utterance of a phrase stamps it for ever. The emphasis 
of a great orator, or actor, will impress his peculiarity of 
language. 

53. As regards Elocution, the powers of the voice are 
subservient to the Ear for Cadence. 

The Ear for Cadence is probably a sense partaking both 
of the musical and the articulate ear. Either of these alone, 
in the greatest perfection, with the other deficient, would not 
sufiice for the actor or the elocutionist. The fine sense of 
cadence stores the mind with many strains or melodies of 
utterance, which the orator reproduces in his oral delivery, 
choosing, if need be, the words that give most scope to the 
melody. 

The purest exercise of verbal adhesiveness is seen in vocal 
mimicry, which demands the endowments of voice, articulate 
ear, and ear for cadence, with little besides. 

54. Written language appeals to the sense of Arbitrary 
Visible Eorms. 

Written symbols depend for their adhesiveness on the 
muscular endowment of the eye and its related nerve centres. 
A well-known aid to verbal memory is to write with one's 
own hand what has to be remembered. The effect of this 
is not simply to add a new line of adhesion, the arm and 
finger recollections — although we might remember by these — 
but to impress the forms upon the eye, through the concen- 
trated attention of the act of copying. 

55. Short modes of acquiring languages have been 
often sought ; but there are no rules special to language. 
Any undue stimulus of the attention to one thing is at 
the expense of something else. 

Health, regularity, method, the absence of distractions, 
are the conditions favourable to all acquisition ; granting 
these, each mind has a certain amount of adhesive aptitude, 
which may be distributed in one way or in another, but 
cannot be added, to. A language involves a certain definite 
number of adhesive growths, drawing upon the adhesive 
capability to a proportionate degree. What is spent upon 
that must be taken from somethinc: else. It will afterwards 



INFOKMATION CONVEYED IN LANGUAGE. ] 19 

be seen, that acquisition is ecouonaized by tfce'l^^tetection of 
similarities ; and this has a specikl applic^ion to the^^Kiy of 
languages that are cognate to one ano&er/^ It is nowSthe 
custom for good teachers of the classical, as' Trefi as of tbe^^ 
tinental, tongues, to lay open the deeper affinities' with Ji 
own, so as thereby to promote the memory of the vocabl%. V^' 

56. A good verbal adhesiveness is of value in tliePme- t- 
mory of knowledge or information conveyed in language, y 

The repetition of speeches, poetry, &c., by rote is an 
exercise of the verbal memory. Sir Walter Scott had this 
power, although doubtless it was greatest where the subject 
in'spired his feelings. Macaulay was distinguished by his ver- 
bal memory. Such men, by their memory for words, remem- 
bered also the information attached to the words. In the 
extreme cases of this endowment, the memory of an exposition 
or discourse is consistent with a total ignorance of the meaning, 

RETENTIVENESS IN SCIENCE. 

57. Knowledge, as Science, is liable, in a greater or less 
degree, to be clothed in artificial and uninteresting sym- 
bols, in which guise it has to be held in the mind. 

Familiar and matter-of-fact knowledge may be embraced 
under the sensible and concrete forms of nature : the ris- 
ing of the sun is a phenomenon of visible succession. But 
in Astronomy, the gorgeous march of the heavenly bodies ap- 
pears as a mass of algebraical calculations. 

58. Sciences are divided into Object Sciences— those 
of external nature, and Subject Sciences, or those relating 
to mind. 

The Object Sciences range between the most Concrete, 
as Natural History, and the most Abstract, as Mathematics. 

In the more Concrete and Experimental Sciences, as the 
Natural History group (Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology, &c.), 
Geography, Anatomy, Chemistry, Heat, Electricity, — the 
actual appearances to the senses constitute a large part of 
the subject matter ; hence in them, the Concrete mind (whose 
starting point is . Colour) will be at home. The number or 
detail of the visible aspects is such as to need this endowment. 
Still, as sciences, they involve generalization and general 
notions, and cannot be divorced from the arbitrary symbolism 
or machinery suited to the high generalities ; hence they may 



120 EETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

be regarded as the mixed type of Science. The pure type is 
seen in the next class. 

The Abstract Sciences are Mathematics, the mathematical 
parts of Natural Philosophy, much of Chemistry and Physi- 
ology, and the more technical parts of the other Concrete 
Sciences. These, when in character, are represented to the 
mind by numbers, by line diagrams, by symbols and signs, 
most frequently adopted from the alphabet, but united in un- 
familiar and repulsive combinations ; while many of the 
generalities are expressed in ordinary language, but in the 
most abstract terms of language. 

As mere sense presentation, this machinery is laid hold of 
by the eye for form reposing on the muscular retentiveness of 
vision. It is, as it were, a variety of written language, also 
named orally so as to obtain a concurring hold on the ear. 
The interest of colour is set aside ; the forms have no aesthetic 
charm. The motive that quickens the natural adhesiveness 
of the eye for forms, must be some extraneous interest. 

That interest is the interest of Truth in its comprehensive- 
ness or generality. This is the inducement to lay up in the 
mind uninteresting forms, and to endure the labour attendant 
on abstract notions and reasonings. 

59. The Subject Sciences, those of Mind proper, are 
grounded on self-consciousness, or introspective attention. 

Although the science of mind includes many phenomena 
of an Object character, — namely, the bodily manifestations of 
mind, and the actions of living beings, as prompted by their 
feelings, — yet the essential properties of mind are known only 
in each one's self-consciousness. 

There being no special medium of observation fol' the 
phenomena of mind, like the eye, the ear, or the touch, for the 
departments of the object world, we must follow a different 
course in endeavouring to assign the special attitude for dis- 
criminating and retaining the self-conscious states generally, 

60. The special circumstances favouring the accumu- 
lation of knowledge in regard to mental, or subject states, 
are the Absence, or moderate pressure, of Object regards, 
and Interest in the department. 

As we cannot appeal to a positive endowment, a mental 
eye, analogous to the bodily eye for colour, . we may sup- 
pose that the waking consciousness, being divided between 
Object and Subject regards, may in each person incline more 



CONDITIONS OF SUBJECTIVE ACQUIREMENTS. 121 

to one than to the other. Given a certain native power of 
intellect;, the direction taken by it, will determine the intellect- 
tual character. If the Object regards are exclusive or over- 
powering, the knowledge of the Subject, as such, will be at 
its lowest ebb. 

The circumstances favouring the Objective attention can 
be assigned, with great probability, and their remission would 
therefore account for the Subjective attention. These objective 
circumstances are, first, great spontaneous muscular activity 
in all its forms, and next, a high development of the senses 
most allied with object properties, as sight, touch, and hear- 
ing. Where the forces of the system are profusely determined 
towards bodily energies, the character is rendered pre-emi- 
nently objective ; whereas, not only persons differently con- 
stituted, but the same persons under advancing years, illness, 
and confinement of the. energies, are thrown more upon self- 
consciousness, and exhibit the consequences of- this attitude, 
in greater knowledge of the feelings, more sympathy with 
others, and an ethical or moralizing tendency. Again, as re- 
gards the Object senses, a strong susceptibility to colour, or 
to music, or to tactile properties, operates in the direction of 
the object regards ; if these sensibilities are only average, or 
below average, in a mind of great general powers, a large 
share of attention will be given to subject states. On the 
other extreme, great organic sensibility inclines the regards 
to the subject-self. 

61. In order to indicate the medium, or organ, of 
mental study, Eeid and Stewart designated a faculty for 
that purpose, under the name ' Consciousness.' Hamil- 
ton spoke of the same power as the ' Presentative Fa- 
culty ' for Self 

* Reflexion ' had been previously used by Locke, to mean 
the source of our knowledge of the Subject world ; the name, 
however, was not well chosen. The word ' Consciousness ' is 
preferable ; but if consciousness be comprehensively applied 
to the Object as well as to the Subject regards, the qualified 
form ' Self-consciousness ' is still more suitable ; it is also 
justified by common usage. 

Hamilton calls the first source of our knowledge of facts, 
the faculty of Presentation. The Senses are the Presen- 
tative medium for the object world ; Self-consciousness is the 
Presentation of the subject world. 



122 RETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTlGUIXy. 

BUSINESS, OR PRACTICAL LIFE. 

62. The Education of the higher Industry, as opposed 
to mere handicraft, varies with the different departinents. 
Among the elements involved, we may specify (1) an 
acquaintance with Material forms and properties, (2) cer- 
tain technical Formalities akin to science, and (3) a prac- 
tical knowledge of Human beings. 

(1) The knowledge of a certain class of natural properties 
is involved in the various industrial arts, — in Agriculture, 
Manufactures, and Commerce. This is not essentially distinct 
from scientific knowledge, although differently selected and 
circumscribed. The scientific attribute, generality, is not so 
much aimed at, as precision or certainty in the particular 
applications. The steel- worker must have a minute acquaint- 
ance with the properties of steel; the cotton-spinner must 
know all the shades and varieties of the material. 

(2) The formalities of book-keeping, and the modes of 
reckoning money transactions, are of the nature of arbitrary 
forms, like Arithmetic and Mathematics. 

(3) In many practical departments, as statesmanship, 
oratory, teaching, &c., human beings are the material, and the 
knowledge of them, in the practical shape, is a prime requisite. 
The same knowledge is of avail to the employer of workmen, 
and to the trader who has to negotiate in the market with 
other human beings. 

The comprehensive Interest in the present case is worldly 
means, which is a far higher spur to attention than truth. 
There are special likings for special avocations, owing to the 
incidents of each suiting difierent individualities. Another 
biassing circumstance is the greater honour attached to certain 
professions. 

There is a close relation, in point of mental aptitude, 
between the higher walks of material Industry and the Con- 
crete or Experimental Sciences ; and between the formal de- 
partments, as Law and Mathematics. The management of 
human beings would depend upon the aptitude for the sub- 
ject sciences. 

ACQUISITIONS IN THE FINE ARTS. 

63. Fine Art constructions are intended to give a cer- 
tain species of pleasure, named the pleasure of Beauty, 
Taste, or iEsthetic emotion. 



CONDITIONS OF FINE AKT ACQUIREMENTS. 123 

The usaally recognized Fine Arts are Architecture, Sculp- 
ture, Painting, Poetry, Dramatic display, Refined Address, 
Dancing, Music. Their common end is refined pleasure, 
although their means or instrumentality is different. They 
are divided between the Eye and the Ear, the two higher 
senses. Poetry and Acting combine both. 

64 The most general conditions of acquisition in Fine 
Art are (1) Mechanical Aptitude, (2) Adhesiveness for the 
Subject-matter of the Art, and (3) Artistic sensibility. 

(1) In those Arts where the artist is a mechanical work- 
man, he requires corresponding Active endowments. The 
singer, the actor, the orator, need powers of voice (strength, 
spontaneity, and the condition that determines alike discrimi- 
nation and retentiveness) : the actor and orator are farther in 
want of corresponding powers of feature and gesture. The 
instrumental performer of music, the painter, and the sculptor, 
are workers with the hand. The architect and poet are 
exempted from the present condition. 

(2) An adhesiveness for the Subject or Material of the 
Art is of consequence as storing the mind with available re- 
collections and forms. The painter and poet should have 
extensive memories for the pictorial in nature, as mere visible 
display, without regard to beauty in the first instance. The 
poet should have, in addition, a mind well stored wdth 
vocables, and their melodious and metrical combinations. 
The actpr should have an eye and memory for gestures. The 
musician would derive advantage from an adhesiveness for 
sounds as such. 

(3) The Artistic feeling is the guide to the employment of 
these powers and resources, and the motive for concentrating 
attention upon such objects as gratify it. The Artist must 
have a special and distinguishing sensibility for the proper 
effects of his art; proportions in Architecture, fine curves 
and groupings in Sculpture, colour harmonies in Painting, 
melody in Music, and so on. To have a large command of 
material, without artistic selection is to fail in the proper 
sphere of art ; a pictorial mind, without aesthetic feeling, might 
make a naturalist or a geographer, but not a painter or a 
poet. The profuse command of original conceptions was ap- 
parent in Bacon, but not a poet's delicacy in applying them. 

HISTORY AND NARRATIVE. 

65. The successions of events and transactions in 
human life, remembered and related, make History. 



124 HETENTIVENESS — LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

The adhesion for witnessed or narrated events is often 
looked upon as a characteristic exhibition of memory. Bacon, 
in dividinf^ human knowledge, according to our faculties, 
assigned History to Memory, Philosophy to Reason, Poetry 
to Imagination. 

66. Transactions witnessed impress themselves as Sen- 
sations, principally of Sight and of Sound, aad as Actions, 
when the spectator is also an agent. 

A pageant, ceremony, or other pictorial display commends 
itself to the pictorial memory. Most active demonstrations 
are accompanied, more or less, with effects of sound ; human 
agency is usually attended with the exercise of speech. 

Historical transactions have an interest with human beings 
generally, although with some more than others. Hence the 
memory for witnessed events, being the result of a stimulated 
attention, is usually good. 

Sometimes a single transaction is, in its minutest details, 
remembered for life. This is owing partly to the length of 
time occupied in attending to it, partly to the interest excited, 
and partly to the frequent mental repetition and verbal narra- 
tion afterwards. 

67. Transactions narrated obtain the aid of the Verbal 
memory. 

A narrative is a complex stream of imagery and language. 
In so far as we can realize the picture of the events, we con- 
nect the succession pictorially ; in so far as we remember the 
flow of words, we retain it verbally. Probably, in most cases, 
the memory is formed now by one bond, now by another ; 
different minds portioning out the recollection differently 
between the two. 

OUR PAST LIFE. 

68. The complex current of each one's existence is 
made up of all our Actions, Sensations, Emotions, Thoughts, 
as they happened. 

Our own actions are retained in various shapes. 

(I) Inasmuch as they produce a constantly altered spec- 
tacle about us, they form alliances with our sensations. A 
walk in the country, although a fact of energy or activity, is 
remembered as a series of pictorial aspects. The same is true 
of our executed work ; an artist's finished picture is the em- 
bodiment of his labour for a length of time, and the easiest 
form of remembering it. 



EMBODIMEIST OF OUR PAST LIFE. 125 

(2) If we remember actions as such, and apart from the 
correlative changes of sensible appearance, it is as ideal move- 
ments, for which we have a certain adhesiveness, varying no 
doubt with the motor endowments as a whole. If we re- 
member an action sufficiently to do it again, we remember it 
also ideally. We remember our verbal utterances, partly as 
connected threads of vocal exertion. Still, we rarely depend 
on this single thread. A surgeon may remember how he 
operated for stone, by his memory of hand movements ; but 
the sensible results of the different stages impress him much 
more, 

The memory of our feelings or emotions, in their pure 
subject character, as in pleasure and pain, comes under the 
proper adhesiveness of the subject states. Allusion has been 
made to the permanent recollection of states of pleasure and 
pain, as a thing variable in individuals, and of great import- 
ance in its practical results. It was also remarked that no 
law can be laid down as governing this department, no special 
endowment of sensibility pointed out, except the negation of 
extreme object regards, in a mind of good general retentive- 
ness. 

CONCLUDINa OBSERVATIONS ON RETENTIVENESS. 

69. (1) There is some difficulty in establishing what we 
have named general Retentiveness, seeing that so much de- 
pends on the special organ, and on the interest excited. Still, 
when we encounter a person distinguished as a learner gener- 
ally, with a strong bent for acquisition in all departments — 
bodily skill, languages, sciences, fine arts — we seem justified in 
representing the case as an example of adhesive power on the 
whole, and not as an aggregate of local superiorities. The 
renowned ' admirable Crichton' is a historical example of the 
class. And we find many men that are almost equally good 
in language and in science, in business and in fine art. More- 
over, the superiority of man over the lower animals is general 
and pervasive, and better expressed by a general retentiveness 
than by the sum of special and local distinctions. 

(2) There can be no question as to the superior retentive- 
ness or plasticity of early years. We cannot state with pre- 
cision the comparative adhesiveness of difierent ages, but from 
the time that the organs are fully under command, onward 
through life, there appears to be a steady decrease. The for- 
mation of bodily habits seems to be favoured not solely by 
nervous conditions, at their maximum in youth, but by mus- 



126 RETENTIVENESS— LAW OF CONTIGUITY. 

cular conditions also ; the growing stage of the mnscles being 
the stage of easiest adaptation to new movements. 

As regards the mental peculiarities, the earliest periods are 
most susceptible to Moral impressions ; also to Physical habits, 
such as bodily carriage, the mechanical part of language (pro- 
nunciation), or the nse of the hand as in drawing. After these, 
come the Verbal memory, and the exercise of the senses in 
Observation, with the corresponding pictorial recollections. 
The Generalizing, Abstracting, and Scientific faculties are 
much later; Arithmetic, Grammar, Geometry, Physical Science, 
&c., begin to be possible from about the tenth year onwards. 
Up to fourteen or sixteen, the concrete side of education must 
prevail with the vast majority, although, by that time, a good 
many abstract elements should be mastered, more especially 
mathematics and grammar. The basis of every aptitude, not 
of a high scientific kind, should be laid before sixteen. 

(3) The limitation of the acquirements possible to each 
person has been repeatedly noticed. There are reasons for 
believing that this limitation has for its physical counterpart 
the limited number of the nervous elements. Each distinct 
mode of consciousness, each distinct adhesive grouping, would 
appear to appropriate a distinct track of nervous communi- 
cations, involving a definite number of fibres and of cells or 
corpuscles ; and numerous as ai^e the component fibres and 
cells of the brain (they must be counted by millions) they 
are still limited ; one brain possesses more than another, but 
all have their limitations. 

It is hardly correct to speak of improving the Memory as 
a whole. We may, by devotion to a particular subject, make 
great acquisitions in that subject ; or we may, by habits of 
attention to a certain class of thino^s, remember those thinofs 
better than others ; but the plasticity on the whole, although 
susceptible of being economized, is scarcely susceptible of 
being increased. No doubt by leaving the other powers of the 
mind in abeyance — those entering into Reason, Imagination, 
&c. — and by not wasting ourselves in the excitement of the 
feelings, we may determine a certain additional portion of the 
collective mental energies to plastic acquisition ; but this is 
still to divert power, not to create it. 

(4) Tliere is a tew.porarii adhesiveiiess, serving many of 
the occasions of daily life. When we have to follow a direc- 
tion, to convey a message, to answer a question, to put a fact 
on record, a few minutes' retention is all that is necessary. 
In such instances, we fulfil the requirements before the pre- 
sent impression has died away. 



TKMPOKARY KETENTIVENESS. 127 

The next grade of adhesiveness is represented by the 
superior readiness and liveliness of recollection for things that 
have occurred within a few hours or a few days, or perhaps 
months. It is the difference between days, or weeks, and 
years of interval. The things are supposed to have gone 
completely out of mind, to have been overlaid by many newer 
impressions ; still we find that nearness in time makes a great 
difference ; that as our impressions go into the far past, with- 
out being renewed, they tend to decay ; that, after a few 
years, extinction has come over a great many that were good 
for a few months, especially such as were formed late in life. 

What is called cramming is a case of temporary adhesive- 
ness. But the reproach implied in this name attaches more 
to the circumstance that the acquisitions are made by an undue 
pressure and excitement of the brain, which can be only tem- 
porary, and ends in an exhaustion of the plastic forces. An 
even pace of acquirement, within the limits of the strength, 
is the true economy in the long run. 



CIIAPTEE II. 

AGREEMENT— LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

1. T?IE statement of this law is as follows : — 

Pr^s^Tz^ Actions, Sensations, Thoughts, or Emotions 
tend to revive their Like among previously oc- 
curring states. 

Contiguity joins together things that occur together, or 
that are, by any circumstance, presented to the mind at the 
same time ; as when we associate heat with light, a falling body 
with a concussion. But, in addition to this link of reproduc- 
tive connexion, we find that one thing will, by virtue of simi- 
larity, recall another separated from it in time, as when a 
portrait brings up the original. 

The second fundamental property of Intellect, termed 
Consciousness of Agreement, or Similarity, is thus a great 
power of mental reproduction, or a means of recovering past 
mental states. It was recognized by Aristotle as one of the 
links in the succession of our thouo^hts. 



128 AGKEEMENT — LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

2. Similarity, in one form, is implied under Contiguity. 
AVhen a contiguous bond is confirmed by repeated exer- 
cises, each new impression must recall the total of the past. 

In order that we may, by repetition, attain an enduring 
idea of the winding of a river, seen from the same point, each 
new view must reinstate the effect of the previous ; which is 
a species of the attraction of similarity. In such a case, how- 
ever, the similarity amounts to identity, and is never failing 
in its operation. There is no need to mention what can with 
certainty be counted on ; hence this condition of the success of 
contiguous association was tacitly assumed. The cases that 
demand our attention are those where the similarity does not 
amount to identity, and where it may fail to operate : the 
circumstances leading to the failure or the success are then a 
matter of distinct enquiry. 

3. The impediments to the sure revival of the Past, 
through the bond of similarity, are Faintness and Diversity. 

There are cases where a present impression is too Feeble 
to strike into the old-established track of the same impression, 
and to make it alive again ; as when we are unable to iden- 
tify a faint colour, or to recognize a visible object in twilight 
dimness. This forms one department of difficult and doubtful 
re-instatement. The most numerous and interesting cases, 
however, come under the head of Diversity, or likeness accom- 
panied by unlikeness; as when an air is played with new 
variations, or on strange instruments. It will then depend 
upon various circumstances, whether or not we shall be struck 
with the similarity. 

It will appear, as we proceed, that there are the greatest 
individual differences, in respect of the power of re-instating 
a past experience through similarity, under the obstructions 
caused by faintness and diversity. This power would seem 
to follow laws of its own, and not to rise or fall in the propor- 
tion of the Contiguous adhesiveness. As with Contiguity, how- 
ever, so here we find that the facts tally best with the assump- 
tion of a General Power of attraction for Similars, modified by 
the Local endowments of the Senses. Each intellect would 
seem to be gifted with a certain degree of Similarity on the 
whole, or for things generally ; such general power being con- 
sistent with special differences, according to the same local 
peculiarities as we have allowed for in Contiguity. These 
will be made to appear in the illustration of the workings of 



CONDITIONS OF RECOGNIZING FEEBLE IMPRESSIONS. 129 

Similarity, first under the disadvantage of Faintness, and 
secondly, and at greater length, under the obstruction of 
Diversity. 

FEEBLENESS OF IMPRESSION. 

4. Under a certain degree of Faintness, a present im- 
pression, will be unable to recall the past, even although 
the resemblance amounts to identity. 

When a present impression is very faint or feeble, it is the 
same as no impression at all. Nevertheless, we are interested 
in considering the instances, of not unfrequent occurrence, 
where a faint impression is recognized by one man and not by 
another. Suppose a taste. In the case of a very feeble brine, 
many persons might consider the water quite fresh ; others 
again would discern the taste of the salt ; that is to say, the 
present impression of salt would recall the previous collective 
impression of the taste of salt, and with that the name and 
characters, or the full knowledge of salt; in other words, 
would identify the substance. 

(1) Let us reflect on the mental peculiarity that may be 
supposed to cause the difference. In the first place, we must 
admit that the natural delicacy of the sense of Taste might 
vary. We know that all the senses are subject to individual 
variations of natural acuteness ; the readiest test of the com- 
parative acuteness being the power of Discrimination, which 
power also implies a delicate sense of Agreement, as well as a 
special force of Retentiveness. In the same way, a delicate 
sense of smell, as in the dog, would show itself in identifying 
very faint odours ; a good ear would make out fainter impres- 
sions of sound; an eye for colour would recognize a faint shade of 
yellow in what to another eye would seem the absence of colour. 

(2) In the second place, through familiarity, or other 
cause, the previous impression might he more deeply engrained in 
one mind than in another ; as a consequence of which, it would 
start out on a slighter touch of present stimulus. We should 
expect this to happen from the very nature of the case, and 
we know, by abundance of familiar facts, that it does happen. 
The sailor identifies a ship in the offing, and determines its 
build, sooner than a landsman. According as our familiarity 
Y/ith spoken language increases, we identify the faintest whis- 
per, or most indistinct utterance. It matters not by what 
means the previous impression has been rendered deep and 
strong, — whether by mere iteration, or by the influence of 
feeling. 



130 AGKEEMENT — LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

(3) A third possible source of inequality, in recognizing a 
faint impression, is the habit of attending to the particular 
class of impressions. This may be otherwise described, as 
the acquired delicacy of the sense; by repeated acts of attention 
or concentration of mind, on any one sense, or any one region of 
things, a habitual concentration is determined, augmenting, by 
so much, the natural delicacy of the sense. Hence all profes- 
sional habits of regarding some particular objects, render the 
individuals susceptible to the feeblest impression of any one 
of those objects. 

It need not be made the subject of a separate head, that 
the undistracted condition of the mind at the time, necessarily 
favours the power of making out the identity. A full concen- 
tration of the observing powers is supposed in order to do 
justice to the case ; the concentration may, or may not, be 
aided by motives of special interest, or by circumstances that 
excite the nervous energy beyond its ordinary pitch. 

These three conditions, differing in origin or source, have 
one common effect, namely, to give greater strength or inten- 
sity to the previous impression. They may be considered as 
exhausting the local and special aids to the restoration of a 
past state by Similarity, under the disadvantage of feebleness 
in the present or actual stimulus. If we assume, in addition, 
a General Power of Similarity, greater in some minds than in 
others, we seem to exhaust the means of accounting for supe- 
rior power of identification in the case of Feebleness. 

For the sake of clearness, let us repeat the four conditions 
in a summary statement. 

I. General Powers of Similarity. This is the deep and 
pervasive aptitude, the intellectual gift, good for all classes of 
impressions. 

II. Special and Local Circumstances. 

(1) Natural delicacy or acuteness of Sense. 

(2) The depth or intensity of the previous impression. 

(3) Acquired delicacy, or habitual attention, to a parti- 
cular class of things. 

All these considerations are no less applicable to the means 
of conquering the obstruction of Diversity ; they must, how- 
ever, for that case, be supplemented by a fourth special cir- 
cumstance, to be presently mentioned. 

SIMILARITY IN DIVERSITY — SENSATIONS. 

5. Movements, Feelings of Movement, and Sensations 



OBSTRUCTIVE OF DIVERSITY. 131 

generally, are revived in idea, by the force of partial simi- 
larity, or likeness in difference. 

When a portrait brings to our mind the original, it is by 
virtue of similarity ; the differences between painted canvass 
and a living man or woman do not blind us to the points of 
likeness. Increase the diversity, however, by dress, attitude, 
and by idealizing the features, and the remaining likeness 
may be insufficient to recall the original ; the diverse circum- 
stances carry the mind away from the points of similarity. 

As regards Diversity, thereforcj the distinctive feature is 
the influence of the points of dissimilarity. These, by the 
general law, have a tendency to call up their like ; and hence 
a struggle of opposing influences. A person that we have 
seen only in ordinary costume is painted in military or official 
uniform. Viewing the- picture, we may be instigated, by 
similarity, in various directions. As a portrait, the picture 
may suggest other portraits, the reviving stroke of similarity 
operating upon the painter's execution. Or the military 
dress may suggest some soldier by profession. Lastly, the 
portrait may recall its original by the resemblance of the face. 
Three persons looking at the same portrait may thus be 
moved in three different- lines of mental resuscitation ; and 
to each one there will be an attraction of likeness in diver- 
sity ; the points of diversity, by their own independent attrac- 
tions, operating as a hindrance to the similarity. Whichever 
point brings on the recall is the likeness ; the others are the 
unlikenesses ; and in their efforts to recall their own simili- 
tudes, they count for so much dead weight against the suc- 
cessful identity. 

It is thus apparent that the circumstance special to the 
obstruction caused by Diversity, is the striving of the separate 
features, each for itself, to strike the recall. Hence, besides 
the three special circumstances contributing to resuscitation, 
under Faintness, we must now add a fourth — namely, (4) a 
low or inferior susceptihiUhj to the points of diversity. 

G. Movements a7id Feelings of Movement. Before proceeding 
to the Sensations proper, we may advert to the one case of 
movement that furnishes interesting examples of Similarity, 
namely, Articulate movements, or Speech. Any train of 
words presently uttered is liable to recall previous trains 
containing salient identities, although in the midst of differ- 
ence. In using a particular phrase, or in telling an anecdote, 
we are liable to be made aware that we are repeating our- 



132 AGREEMENT — LAW OF SIMILAKITY. 

selves. We may trace similarities still farther removed from 
identity. In uttering the expression ' rights of property/ we 
may be led to remember a famous saying, that ' property has 
its duties as well as its rights.' Coincidences of phraseology 
in authors are thus recalled. Pronouncing Campbell's lines — 

we linger to survey 

The promis'd joys of life's unmeasured way, 

we can hardly fail to recall, if we have previously read, Pope's — 

we tremble to survey 

The growing labours of the lengthened way. 

Verbal similitudes form one powerful link in the resus" citations 
necessary for continuous address or composition. They are 
favoured by all the special circumstances above laid down — 
the verbal or articulate susceptibility, natural and acquired, 
the previous familiarity, and the low susceptibility to the dif- 
ferences between the new and old, which differences may be 
sometimes in the words, but as often in the sense ; the conse- 
quence being that a regard to meaning or sense is often a 
bar to verbal similitudes being struck, especially those, like 
epigrams or puns, that play upon similarities in the form of 
the word, amidst the greatest discordancies of meaning. 

7. Sensations of Organic Life, Among the organic sensa- 
tions, there are many cases of the repetition of a feeling with 
new admixtures, and variety of circumstances, all tending to 
thwart the reviving or identifying operation. The same or- 
ganic depression may have totally different antecedents and 
collaterals. A shock of grief, a glut of pleasure, a fit of over- 
work, an accidental loss of two or three nights' rest, may 
all end in the very same kind of headache, stupor, or feeling 
of discomfort ; but the great difference in the antecedents may 
prevent our identifying the occasions. The derangement 
caused by grief is more likely to recall a previous occasion of 
a similar grief, than to suggest a time of overdone enjoyment; 
the sameness in organic state is, in the case of such a parallel, 
nullified by the repulsion of opposites in the accompanying 
circumstances ; a state of grief does not permit a time of 
pleasure to be recalled and dwelt upon ; the loss of a parent 
at home is not compatible with the remembrance of a long 
night of gaiety abroad. Hence we do not identify the sup- 
posed state of organic depression with all the previous recur- 
rences of the same state ; unless, indeed, a scientific education 
has made us aware of the sameness of the physical effects 
resulting from the most dissimilar causes. 



IDENTIFICATION OF TASTES— CLASSIFICATION, 133 

8. Taste. A taste may be disguised by mixture with 
other tastes. Each of the various ingredients tends to recall 
its like, but under more or less obstruction from the others. 
Three or four salts might be dissolved together, to their 
mutual confusion of taste; the one actually identified would 
be probably the most familiar. Sugar, common salt, alcohol, 
would be discerned in preference to less common tastes or 
relishes. 

In the different wines, there is a common effect, partly 
of organic sensation, and partly of taste ; and this is identified 
in the midst of much diversity. If a person were to encoun- 
ter at intervals all the different juices of the grape, in all 
countries, — the varieties, or diversities, would obscure the 
sameness ; the common taste of alcohol would hardly emerge 
under the accessories — sweetness, sourness, tartness, and the 
rest ; the mind would, at first, fail to identify a sweet and a 
sour liquid as agreeing in alcoholic pungency. Such an iden- 
tification, however, would sooner or later be effected ; and it 
is important to naark the consequences, as representing one of 
the fruits of the operation of similarity. The discovery Of 
this important point of community in substances so widely 
scattered, and so various in their concrete totalities, was what 
Plato called seeing ' the one in the many' — the discovery of a 
class ; it was rising to the unity of nature in the midst of her 
diversity. Such discoveries have a twofold value ; they ease 
the intellectual grasp ; and they enlarge our practical re- 
sources. 

We can carry the identification, in the instance supposed, 
still farther. When the fermentation of malt was discovered, 
new liquids were obtained ; and the distillation of malt and 
various sugary substances added others. The same identify- 
ing stroke, obstructed for a time by differences, would trace a 
community in the wine group, the malt liquors, and the dis- 
tilled liquors ; the range of community is now extended ; 
' the one' is found in a larger * many.' The class is henceforth 
widened to alcoholic drinks ; the intellect embraces all by a 
single effort ; the needs of practical life, as regards this one 
property, are gratified by a more abundant choice. 

The identification may stretch yet farther. The common 
fact of stimulating the nervous system, and imparting elation 
to the mental tone, may be detected in other substances, as in 
the so-called stimulants — opium, tobacco, tea, hemp, &c. 
There are differences to break throuo'h, before arrivino^ at this 
point ; the power of Similarity may need to be aided by 
8 



134 AGREEMENT — LAW OF SIMILAR ITY. 

favouring conditions, sucli as familiarity with the substances 
to be identified ; still, the differences would not long hold out 
against the felt agreement of wine, cofiee, tobacco, and opium. 
A separate illustration for Smell is needless. 

9. Touch. The plurality of effects in tangible objects affords 
scope for recognizing agreement in difference. More especi- 
ally does the combination of the tactile with muscular sensi- 
bility allow of great variety of impressions. 

We identify a wooden surface in every variety of form ; 
we identify the spherical shape in variety of surface, and of 
size ; we identify silken, woollen, linen, fabrics by the touch, 
although the texture may be coarse or fine. We identify 
viscid and powdery substances by their peculiar consistency, 
although the specimens may be disguised by unlike accom- 
paniments. 

In this way we generalize and classify effects of touch, and 
the substances that produce them, however different in other 
points. The classified sensations of Touch, as described 
above (see Touch), namely, soft touch, pungent touch, plur- 
ality of points, hardness, resistance, tactile form, &c., all suppose 
this operation of identifying the same effect, in the midst of 
diverse accompaniments. Until we have made some progress in 
identification, we cannot be said to hioiv these various effects ; 
we do not separate them from the concretes where they first 
appear. If hardness were always accompanied with a fixed 
degree of warmth, we should know only the joint sensation, 
which we should recognize as one and not as two. It is by 
identifying the common effect of hardness, under variety of 
temperature, that we possess the idea of hardness by itself 
Such is an example of the operation of Similarity in the very 
beginnings of our cognitive separation of nature's concretes. 

10. Hearing. The still greater complexity of effects of 
Sound affords ample scope for seeing the like in the unlike. 
Thus, the ])itch of a note may be overlaid by varying inten- 
sity, by difference of voice or instrument, and so on. In such 
a case, only the good ear will recognize it : the natural and 
acquired delicacy of the sense of pitch is tested by identifying 
a note heard amidst distracting accompaniments. 

The articulate property of sound maybe disguised beyond 
the power of ordinary identification. When a person talks 
with indistinct utterance, or with an unaccustomed voice, 
pronunciation and accent, the points of difference overpower 
the articulate agreement ; failing to identify the articulate 
characters, we fo.il to understand the speaker. This is a 



IDENTIFICATION IN MUSIC AND IN LANGUAGE. 135 

testing case for the local aids to similarity, namely, the good 
articulate ear, and the indifference or low sensibility to 
effects of cadence, which are felt by the ear for elocution or 
oratory. A provincial brogue, nnfamiliar to us, always 
renders a speaker more or less unintelligible ; in other words, 
the diversity of accent drowns the commnnity of articula- 
tion. We might have, as a converse instance, the ear for 
cadence so acute as to identify a very disguised provincialism 
of accent. 

In listening to a continuous musical piece or air, we 
identify the piece, or we do not. A bad ear, and little pre- 
vious familiarity, would account for the failure ; the obstruc- 
tion being increased by a strong susceptibility for instrumental 
and other particularities apart from the character of the piece. 
Also, we may identify the key, although the piece be new ; 
we may identify the style of the composer ; or we may trace a 
certain ethical character — the gay, the solemn, the pathetic, 
the melaucholy. 

Continuous spoken address is diversified by cadence, as 
already remarked, and by all the arts of elocution, as well as 
by the visible accompaniments of gesture. The hearer may 
incline, by preference, to one class of effects, being compara- 
tively insensitive to the others ; and the course of the identifi- 
cation will alter accordingly. Our easy understanding of 
every-day speech is owing to the uniformity of all the accom- 
paniments of voice, pronunciation, cadence, and gesticulation ; 
if these accompaniments are altered, as when we listen to 
strangers, or foreigners, the diversity clouds the perception of 
the articulate sameness. 

Our memory for language spoken is a mixture of articu- 
late and auditory recollections ; the ear counting for more 
than the voice. The occasions for tracing similarity in diver- 
sity, among verbal trains, are innumerable. When another 
person is speaking, we are affected through the ear, and are 
reminded of previously heard sayings, more or less similar 
according to the circumstances. We detect resembl Ing phrases, 
and styles, in different speakers ; we are reminded of past 
occasions when the same forms were used by the same or by 
other persons. We generalize mannerisms and peculiarities 
in each person that we are accustomed to listen to, and assign 
characteristics in accordance therewith. 

The great diversifying accompaniment in language is the 
meaning or subject matter. A mind intently regarding the 
sense will be less apt to dwell upon the phraseology ; the 



136 AGREEMENT — LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

suggestiveness will be for meaniiig and not for words. And, 
conversely, a small regard to meaning, and an acute apprecia- 
tion of words, will make the mind keenly alive to similarities 
of plirase in spite of disparity of sense. 

11. Sight We identify colours under difference of shade ; 
whicli leads to the classifying of colours, as blues, yellows, 
reds, &c. When a colour is intermediate, or on the margin 
between two principal colours, we may identify it with either 
the one or other, according to the circumstances. We gene- 
ralize the peculiar effect of lustre, as seen in many different 
situations, — in the pebbly brook, the coating of varnish, the 
brilliant surface of jet black, the polished marble, the human 
eye. It requires a higher stretch of Similarity to identify with 
those the sparkle of solar reflection from broken surfaces. 

Combina.tions of Colour with visible Form and Size, are 
identified now on one feature, now on another. We identify 
a common colour, or shade of colour, through all changes of 
form and magnitude ; such identification being our notion, or 
idea, of that colour. A deep susceptibility to colour will make 
us perceive delicate agreements, as well as differences, and 
enlarge our fund of these distinct notions of shades of colour. 
It is by consciousness of agreement, that we recognize a colour 
according to its precise shade, and not merely according to its 
generic class — red, blue, orange, &c. 

To identify visible forms in the midst of differences of 
colour and dimensions, is to classify and generalize the forms of 
natural bodies. We discern a common effect in all the bodies 
called round, or oval, or triangular. We identify less sym- 
metrical forms that recur in nature and in art — the egg- shape, 
heart- shape, pear- shape, &c. The resemblances are generally 
obvious ; sometimes they are obscure, as in many of the 
descriptive comparisons in Botany and in Anatomy, Deep 
identities of form would be soonest arrived at by minds little 
sensitive to colours. 

Under arbitrary and symbolical forms, we have the case 
of deciphering handwriting. The perception of alphabetical 
identity is sometimes difficult; and the difficulty is aggravated 
if there be great symmetry or proportion in other respects. 
An elegant indistinct hand is often the most illegible of any. 
The best decipherer would be a person susceptible to the 
alphabetic distinctions, and wholly unsusceptible to regularity 
and symmetry. 

Visible forms, linked together, enter into our recollections 
of Language. We may trace similarities of phrase through 



VISIBLE FORMS AND VISIBLE MOVEMENTS. 137 

the eye, as well as througli the ear. The suggestive force of 
a sentence uttered is greatly increased by writing it down and 
exhibiting it to the eye. 

So, visible forms artistically pleasing are identified on that 
ground, by the artist, although there should not be either 
mathematical symmetry or literal agreement. The strong 
sense of the mathematical, the regular, or the literal, might 
be a hindrance to artistic invention generally. 4 

A scene of nature is to the eye a mixed and complicated 
effect, suggesting to different minds different comparisons, 
according to susceptibility and to previous experience. The 
same is true of any varied spectacle, as a pageant or procession. 
We have only to ring the changes on the several circum- 
stances, positive and negative, that favour a particular recall, to 
exhaust all the varieties of individual characters. The mental 
preference for form, or for colour, for symmetrical forms, for 
artistic effects, will each operate characteristically upon the 
course of the identification. 

Under Sight, finally, we may mention visible "movements, 
Notwithstanding diversity of accompanying circumstances, 
we trace identity, and form classes, among rectilineal move- 
ments, circular movements, elliptical movements, pendulums, 
waves, waterfalls, and so on. The more complex movements 
of animals are reduced to identical modes — the walk, gallop, 
trot, shamble, of quadrupeds; also the peculiar flight of dif- 
ferent species of birds. The gait of human beings is a part 
of their character, and is identified in the midst of other dif- 
ferences. Once more, a visible movement is identified with a 
resembling form in still life, as the rainbow with a projectile ; 
a falling body with a crushing weight. 

12. Effects common to the Senses generally. Although there 
is a generic and fundamental difference of feeling between one 
sense and another, as between touch and smell, hearing and 
sight, yet we identify many common effects. Thus the charac- 
teristic called * pungency ' applies to tastes and to smells alike, 
and is not inappropriate when describing Touch, Hearing, or 
Sight. In all the senses, we identify the pleasing and the 
painful, and the different modes of acute and massive. The 
feeling of warmth is identified with effects of vision ; mention 
is made of warm colours. By a farther stretch, we speak of 
warm emotions, a cold nature, a bitter repentance, a sweet 
disposition. These last, however, pass into the region of 
metaphor and poetry, where resemblances are purposely 
multiplied on slight pretexts. 



138 AGREEMENT— LAW OF SIMILAIUTY. 

CONTIGUOUS AGGREGATES — CONJUNCTIONS. 

13. First, Objects affecting a Plurality of Senses. 

Two things may agree to the touch, and differ to the 
sight ; or agree to the sight, and differ to the taste or smell. 
Nevertheless, the difference need not necessarily blind us to 
ihe similarities. We identify the heavy metals on the point 
of weight, although they are unlike in appearance ; we iden- 
tify the metallic lustre, amid variety of colour, weight, and 
other differences, including in one case the difference of liquid 
and solid. Still, if some one feature of diversity were very 
alluring, as the glitter of the diamond, we should not proceed 
to identify the crystalline form, or the specific gravity, until 
our admiration of the more startling quality were exhausted. 

14. Secondly, Aggregates of associated properties and 

uses. 

No one object in nature discloses the whole of its charac- 
teristics as it appears in stillness and isolation. A flint is not 
fully known, until we manipulate it, for hardness, brittleness, 
and the rest. Our knowledge of each object is therefore a 
com^pound of its permanent aspects, and of its possible aspects, 
under certain operations. A hammer is not completely known 
till it is seen in action; a weather-cock must be observed 
turning with the wind. 

In such cases, likeness may be accompanied witb great 
diversity. Things widely different in their mere sensuous 
appearance may be identical in their uses ; and things widely 
different in their uses may be identical in their appearance. 
Take the first case — diversity in appearance, with identity in 
use. A rope is in appearance very unlike two bevelled tooth 
wheels working into one another, but it may serve the same 
end of communicating movement from one revolving axle to 
another. 

A still more remarkable instance of diversity of appear- 
ance, in company with identity of use, is seen in the Prime 
Movers. It is easy to identify human force with animal 
force ; a difference so small could be got over by the most 
ordinary intellect in search of a mechanical power. A water- 
fall is a much less obvious comparison ; it would demand a 
considerable stretch of identifying faculty concentrating itself 
on the point of mechanical force. Still farther removed in 
sensuous aspects is the power of the wind. It is not recorded 



IDENTITY OF PKIME MOVEliS. 139 

under wliat circumstances tlie human mind extended its grasp 
to these less apparent sources of motive power; but we 
happen to be fully acquainted with the discovery of the 
greatest of them all ; and can produce it as a highly illustra- 
tive example of the workings of Similarity in Diversity. To 
the common eye, steam, or vapour, suggested nothing but 
fleecy tenuity ; it seemed the farthest remove from anything- 
that could exert moving power. Doubtless, the forcing up of 
the lid of a boiling kettle was a familiar fact, but this fact did 
not suggest as a parallel the other sources of moving power ; 
the likeness was shrouded by too many circumstances of 
unlikeness. The special conditions of sach an identification, 
in the mind of Wafct, were his previous studies of mechanical 
properties, the habit of directing his mind to these on all 
occasions, and the negative peculiarity of indifference to mere 
sensuous aspects as such. To these, v, e must probably add 
the general power of Similarity in an unusual degree ; an 
assumption necessary when we consider the number of suc- 
cessful fetches made by him, as compared with other men of 
like education, pursuits, and habits. 

In the class of Mineral bodies, we have the concurrence of 
many attributes in each individual, some sensible and per- 
manent, others experimental and occasional. If we take the 
group of mefcals, we find a certain number easily identified ; 
the differences, although considerable, do not overpower the 
marked sameness in appearance and in specific gravity. But 
when Sir Humphrey Davy suggested that metals were locked 
up in soda, potash, and lime, the identification was opposed 
by everything in the sensible appearance ; it proceeded upon 
associated properties, and remote relationships, appreciated 
only by the intellect. An identity had already been struck, 
and a class formed, among the bodies termed salts ; it was 
also known that many of these are composed of an acid and 
the oxide of a metal ; such are sulphate of oxide of iron, 
nitrate of oxide of silver ; others consist of an acid and an 
alkali, as sulphate of soda^ nitrate of iDotasli. Thus, the neu- 
tral salts, as a whole, being so far analogous as to suggest a like 
constitution, while an oxide of a metal and an alkali served 
an identical function in neutralizing the acid, the thought 
came across the mind of Davy, that the alkalies are oxides of 
metals ; a flash of insight that he had the skill and good for- 
tune to verify. This was hunting out nature's similarities in 
the deepest thickets of concealment. 

The progress of science in the Vegetable world would 



140 AGREEMENT — LAW OF SIMILARITY, 

reveal the operation of the principle before iis, in striking out 
deep identities in superficial diversities. In the first classifi- 
cations of plants, the more obvious feature of size took hold 
of the attention ; the Trees of the Forest, were marked off 
from the Shrubs, and the Flowers. The great step made by 
Linngeus, consisted in tracing identity in less conspicuous 
parts of the plant, the organs of fructification; under which the 
largest trees and the smallest shrubs were brought together. 

Botany presents other examples. Thus, Goethe saw in 
the flower the form of the entire plant ; the circular arrange- 
ment of the petals of the corolla was paralleled by the cork- 
screw arrangement of the leaves round the stem. So, Oken, 
in the leaf, identified the plant ; the branchings of the veins 
of a leaf are, in fact, a miniature of the entire vegetable, with 
its parent stem, branches and ramifications. 

In the Animal Kingdom, we might quote many deep 
fetches of Similarity. The first superficial classification of 
animals according to their element, — animals of the land, the 
water, and the air, has since been traversed by other classifi- 
cations founded on deep community of structure ; the bat has 
been detached from birds, and the " seal, whale, and porpoise 
from fishes. More pointed still, as illustrating the power of 
a few select minds to detect similarities unapparent to the 
multitude, is the discovery of the deep identities in the 
vertebrate skeleton, termed homologies. The first suggestion 
of them is attributed to Oken, o, man remarkable for this 
species of intellectual penetration. Walking one day in a. 
forest, he came on the blanched skull of a deer. He took it 
up, and while examining the anatomical arrangements, there 
flashed upon him the identity between it and the back bone ; 
the skull, he said, was four vertebra3 distorted by the expanded 
cerebral mass and the development of the face. It is strange 
that this similarity should not have been first struck out in 
the case of the fishes, where the deviation of the head from 
the spine is smallest. To see it in the quadruped, was to 
work at a far greater disadvantage. But Oken w^as a man, 
not merely gifted with large powers of analogical discovery, 
or, as one should say, general Power of Similarity; he was, 
by the bent of his mind, an analogy-hunter ; he studiously set 
himself to look at things in diverse aspects, so as to detect 
new analogies. No man ever suggested so many identities 
of that peculiar class ; although only a small number, perhaps 
not above half a dozen, have been found to hold upon farther 
examination. 



CYCLE. — EVOLUTION.— CAUSATION. 141 

The homologies of the vetebrate series of animals, whose 
discovery and exposition enter into Comparative Anatomy, 
consist in showing the deep correspondence of parts super- 
ficially unlike ; the upper arm of man, the fore Teg of the 
quadruped, the wing of the bird, the anterior fin of the fish. 

SUCCESSIONS. 

15. The natural successions have been already con- 
sidered under Cycle, Evolution, and Cause and Effect. 
In all of them, there is scope for Identification in the 
midst of difference. 

Cycle, The chief natural phenomena of cycle, the day 
and the year, are too obviously alike not to be identified ; the 
difierences are insignificant as compared with the agreements. 
In the rising and setting of the stars, there is a point of simi- 
larity that may have been long unobserved, the constancy of 
angle in the same latitude, the angle being the co-latitude of 
the place. Besides being an unobvious fact, there are two 
disguising unlikenesses in the rising and setting of the stars 
in the same place ; namely, the height reached by them, and 
the change of the time of rising throughout the year. The 
cycles of the planets would be easy to trace in the suparior 
planets, not so in Mercury and Yenus. 

The cycles of human affairs are sometimes apparent, 
but often obscure. Writers on the Philosophy of His- 
tory have remarked a sort of vibratory tendency in human 
societies, or a transition between two extremes, as from 
asceticism to licence, from severity of taste to laxity, from con- 
servation to innovation. 

Evolution. The successions of Evolution are typified, 
and principally constituted, by the growth of living beings. 
Each plant and animal, in the course of its existence, pre- 
sents a series of phases, and, as respects these, we discover a 
similarity in different individuals and species. The depart- 
ment, called Comparative Embryology, traces identities in 
the midst of wide diversities. Again, the mental evolution of 
human beings is a subject of interesting comparison. 

Cause and Effect. Causation is the name for the total pro- 
ductive forces of the world, and, as these are comparatively 
few in number, but wide in their distribution, and often dis- 
guised in theii" operation, the ingenuity of man has long been 
exercised in detecting the hidden similarities. An example 
will show the nature of the difficulties and the means of con- 
quering them. The burning of coal, and the rusting of iron, 



142 AGKEEMENT — LAW OF SIMILAlilTY. 

show to the eye nothing in common except the fact of change. 
Ko mere force of Similarity, however aided by the ordinary 
favouring conditions, positive and negative, could have de- 
tected the deep community of these two phenomena. Other 
phenomena had to be interposed, having relations to both, in 
order to disclose the likeness. Tiie experiments of Priestley 
upon the red oxide were the intermediate link. Mercury, 
when burned, becomes heavier, being converted into a red 
powder, by taking up material from the air, which can be 
again driven off by heat, so as to reproduce the metallic sub- 
stance. Thus, while the act of combustion of the mercury has 
a strict resemblance to the burning of coal, the resulting 
change on the substance could suggest the rusting of iron, the 
only difference being the time occupied. By such intermediate 
comparisons, the general law of oxidation has been gradually 
traced through all its entanglements. 

K not the greatest known stretch of idehtifying genius, 
the example most illustrious from its circumstances was the 
discovery of universal gravitation. Here the appearances 
were, in the highest degree, unfavourable to identification. 
Who could see anything in common between the grand and 
silent march of the moon and the planets round the heavens, 
and the fall of unsupported" bodies to the ground ? A pre- 
paratory process was necessary on both sides. Newton, by 
studying the planetary motions as a case of the composition 
* of forces, resolved them each into two ; a tendency in a straight 
line through space, and a tendency to the sun as a centre. He 
thus had clearly before him the fact, that there was an attraction 
of the planets to the sun, and of the m.oon to the earth. This 
was the preparation on one side. On the other side, he medi- 
tated on the various phenomena of falling bodies, and, putting 
away as irrelevant the accidental circumstances and interests 
that engross the common mind, he saw in these bodies a 
common tendency of the nature of attraction to the earth's 
surface, or rather the earth's centre. Viewed in this light, 
the phenomenon was closely assimilated to the great effect 
of Solar attraction, which he had previously isolated ; and we 
are not to be surprised that, in some happy moment, the two 
flashed together in his mind. Even after the preparatory 
shapings on both sides, the stroke of identification was a re- 
markable fetch of similarity ; the attendant disparities were 
still great and imposing ; and we must suppose that the 
mind of JSTewton was distinguished no less by the negative 
condition of inattention to the vulgar and sensuous aspects, 



ABSTIIA.CTION,— INDUCTION. 143 

than hj absorption in the purely dynamical aspect, of the 
phenomena. 

REASONING AND SCIENCE IN GENERAL^ 

16. The Generalizing power of the mind, already seen 
to be a mode of Similarity, culminates in Science, and is 
designated under the names Abstraction and Eeasoning. 

The example just quoted, and others previously giverf, 
exhibit Similarity at work in scientific discovery. Sfcill, it is 
desirable to give a more complete view of the relations of 
science to the identifying faculty. The chief scientific pro- 
cesses are these four — Observation, Definition, Induction, 
Deduction ; the first is the source of the individual facts, and 
depends on the senses ; the three last relate to the generalities, 
and are all dependent on the intellectual force of Similarity. 

I. Classification, Abstraction, Generalization of Notions or 
Concepts, General Names, Definition. These designations all 
refer to the one operation of identifying a number of things 
on some point, or property, which property is finally em- 
bodied in language by the process called Definition. The 
start is given by an identifying operation, a perception of 
likeness or community in many things otherwise diverse. 
In watching the heavenly bodies, the early astronomers dis- 
covered a few that moved steadily through the fixed stars, 
and made the circle of the heavens in longer or shorter 
periods. The bodies identified and brought together on 
this common ground, made a class, as distinguished from 
a mere confused aggregate. The mind, reflecting on the 
things so classified, attends to their similarity, and en- 
deavours to leave out of view the points of dissimilarity ; 
this is the long-disputed process of abstraction ; the common 
attribute or attributes is called the abstract idea, the notion, 
or the concept. When a name is applied to the things com- 
pared, because of their agreement or community, it is a 
general name, as ' planet.' And when we are farther desirous 
of settling, by the help of language, the precise nature and 
limits of the common attribute, the result is a definition. A 
planet would now be defined as * a body circulating around 
the sun as its centre, in an orbit nearly circular.' {On. 
Abstraction, see Chap, v.) 

II. Conjoined properties generalized. General Ajfirmatiofis, 
Propositions, Judgments, Laws of Nature, Induction. In Ab- 
straction, a single isolated property, or a collection of proper- 



144 AGKEEMENT — LAW OF SIMILAIUT^. 

ties treated as a unity, is identified and genei^alized ; under 
Induction, a conjunction, union, or concurrence of two distinct 
properties is identified. A proposition contains two notions 
bound together by a copula. 'Heat' is the name of one 
general property or notion ; ' expansion' is the name of a 
second notion ; the proposition ' heat expands bodies,' is a pro- 
position uniting the two properties in an inductive generality, 
ov a law of nature. Here, too, the prime requisite is the 
identifying stroke of Similarity. One present instance of the 
concurrence of heat with increase of bulk, may recall by simi- 
larity other instances ; the mind, awakened by the flash of 
identity, takes note of the concurrence, looks out for other 
cases in point, and ventures (rightly or wrongly) to aflB.rm a 
general law of nature, connecting the two properties. 

All the difficulties and the facilities connected with the 
working of Similarity may be found attending these inductive 
generalizations. There is one noticeable circumstance special 
to the case. That two things or two properties afiect us to- 
gether, excites no attention at first ; we are so familiar with 
such unions that we take little note of the fact. It is, how- 
ever, a point of some importance to know whether two things, 
occurring together, do so merely by accident, or by virtue of 
some fixed attachment keeping them always together ; for, in 
the first case, the coincidence is of no moment, while in the last 
case, it is something that we may count on and anticipate in 
the future. Now, the real problem of inductive generalization 
consists in eliminating the regular and constant concurrences 
from the casual and inconstant. Ifc is the identifying stroke 
of Similarity that is the means of rousing us to the constant 
concurrences ; these repeat themselves while other things 
come and go, and the repetition is the prompting to suspect 
an alliance, and not merely a coincidence. 

The favouring conditions of mind for scientific induction 
are the conditions, positive ^nd negative, of the scientific intel- 
lect on the wdiole. General Power of Similarity being supposed, 
the special circumstances are, susceptibility to symbols and 
forms ; the previous familiarity with the subject matter ; the 
scientific interest ; and the absence of the purely sensuous and 
concrete regards. Such are unquestionably the intellectual 
features of the greatest scientific geniuses, the men whose lives 
are a series of discoveries. 

Some conjunctions are obvious ; as light and heat with the 
sun's rays. Others are less obvious, but yet discernible, with- 
out any artificial medium ; such are the signs of weather^ 



DEDUCTION. 145 

seasons and crops, the pointing of the loadstone to the north, 
many of the causes of agreeable and disagreeable sensation 
and of good and ill health, the influences of national prosperity. 
A third class demand artificial media and aids, as Kepler^s 
laws, and the law of refraction of light, which could not have 
been discovered without the intervention of numerical and 
geometrical relations. 

III. Deduction, Deductive Inference^ Ratiocination^ Appli- 
cation or Extension of Inductions, Syllogism, When an Induc- 
tive generality has been established, the application of it to 
new cases is called Deduction. Kepler^s laws were framed 
upon the six planets ; they have been deductively applied to 
all that have since been discovered. The law of gravity was 
deductively applied to explain the tides. 

Deduction also is a process of identification, by the force 
of Similarity. The new case must resemble the old, otherwise 
there can be no legitimate application of the law. Newton, 
by an inductive identification, detected, among transparent 
bodies, a conjunction between combustibility and high refract- 
ing power ; the oils and resins bend light mnch more than 
water or glass. He then, by a farther stroke of identification, 
bethought himself of the diamond, the most refracting of all 
known substances ; the deductive application of the law 
would lead to the inference that it was composed of some 
highly combustible element ; which afterwards was found to 
be the case. 

The Deductive pro€ess appears under two aspects ; a prin- 
ciple may be given, and its application to facts sought for ; or 
a fact may be given, and its principle sought for. In both, 
the discovery is made by the force of Similarity. When the 
law of definite proportions Tvas first promulgated, an un- 
bounded range of applications lay before the chemist ; which 
was the carrying out of the principle deductively. 

Reasoning by Analogy, This is a mode of reasoning that 
bears upon its name the process of Similarity ; the fact, how- 
ever, being that in it the similarity is imperfect, and the con- 
clusion so much the less cogent. When we examine a sample 
of wheat, the production of the same soil, and infer that the 
rest will correspond to the sample, we make a rigid induc- 
tion ; there being an identity of nature in the material or 
kind. But when we reason from wheat to the other cereals, 
the similarity is accompanied with diversities, and the rea- 
soning is then precarious and only probable ; such is reasoning 
by Analogy. Thus, there is an analogy, not an identity, be- 



146 AGREEMENT— LA.W OF SIMILARITY. 

tween waves of water and waves of air as in sound ; between 
electricity and the nerve force ; between the functions, bodily 
and mental, of men and of the inferior animals ; between the 
family and the state ; between the growth of a living being 
and the growth of a nation. These analogies are struck out 
by the intellectual power of Similarity ; they are useful when 
no closer parallelism can be drawn. 

17. The scientific processes, named Induction and 
Deduction, correspond to what is called the reason, or 
the Eeasoning faculty of the mind. 

The name Reason is used in a narrow sense, corresponding 
to Deduction, and also in a wider sense, comprising both De- 
duction and Induction. To express the scientific faculty in its 
fulness, the process called Abstraction would have to be taken 
along with Reason in the wider sense. What is variously 
termed by Hamilton the Elaborative or Discursive Faculty, 
Comparison, the Faculty o*f Relations, Thought (in a peculiar 
narrow sense), includes the aggregate of processes now de- 
scribed as entering into the operations of science. It has 
just been seen, that the working of Similarity renders an 
adequate account of the principal feature in all these opera- 
tions, although, to complete the explanation, there still re- 
mains a circumstance to be brought forward under the head 
of the Constructive operations of the Intellect. 

BUSINESS AND PRACTICE. 

18. Of Practical discoveries, some are due to observa- 
tion and trial ; others are the extension or application of 
known devices, through the perception of Similarity. 

The first discovery of a lever, a pump, or a boat, could 
be made only by a stumbling and tentative method ; acci- 
dent alone could disclose the advantage of these imple- 
ments. But the extension, to new cases, of machinery once 
discovered, proceeds on the identifying stroke of Similarit}^ 
sometimes in the midst of great dissimilarity. Among early 
nations, we find few indications of discoveries by this last 
method ; the mechanical knowledge of the Egyptians, or of the 
Chinese, would seem to be all of tentative or experimental 
origin. In modern invention, however, we can trace the 
workings of great intellectual force of Similarity. It is emi- 
nent in the career of Watt. His ' governor balls' is a wonder- 
ful stroke of intellectual grasp ; it was not a mechanical tenta- 



TRANSFER OF PRACTICAL DEVICES. 147 

tive ; it was not even the extension of a device already in 
existence. The similarity lay deeper ; he wanted to institute 
a connexion between the increase or diminution of a rapid 
rotatory movement and the opening and shutting of a valve ; 
and he was so fortunate as to recall the situation of bodies 
flying off by centrifugal force, where the distance from the 
centre varies slightly according to the change of speed. "No 
other apposite parallel has ever been suggested for the same 
situation ; and the device once thought of has been carried 
out into many different applications. His suggestion of the 
lobster-jointed pipe, for conveying water across the bottom of 
the Clyde, was another pure fetch of similarity. 

The device of carving a mould and impressing it upon 
any number of separate things, goes back to a high antiquity ; 
as we see in coins. One of its many extensions is the art of 
Printing. 

The common water pump, discovered by experiment, was 
transmuted into the air pump. The water-wheel is the proto- 
type of the ship's paddle. The screw-propeller is an exten- 
sion of the vanes of the windmill. 

In the administration and the forms of business, something 
must first be devised by trials, or suggested by accident ; the 
further extension is a purely intellectual process. The or- 
ganization of masses of men to act together began, doubtless, 
in the necessities of war ; repeated trials showed that there 
must be a chief or superior head, with subordinate grades of 
command. The machinery once suggested is extended to all 
other organizations of large bodies, as for public works, 
manufactures, &c. 

The arts of book-keeping, including the employment of 
printed forms and schedules, have been gradually made to 
permeate all departments of business. 

The art of Fersuasion is greatly dependent on the attrac- 
tive force of Similarity. The orator has to make out an iden- 
tity between his end and the views, opiDions, and motive 
forces of his hearers ; and such identity may be very much 
clogged and disguised. If he has to address an assembly of 
men of wealth, he must reconcile his aims with the rights and 
interests of property. [N'ow, all reconciliation proceeds on the 
perception of points of agreement, real or supposed ; hence a 
mind fertile in discoveries of identification is so far fitted for 
the task of persuasion. Burke's speeches abound in these 
strokes of discernment. • 



148 AGREEMENT— LAW OF SIMILARITY. 



ILLUSTRATIVE COMPARISONS AND LITERARY ART. 

19. A large department of invention, more especially 
in Literature, consists in . striking out similitudes, among 
things different in kind, yet serving to illustrate each 
other. 

Of the Figures of Speech, one extensive class is denomi- 
nated Figures of Similarity, including the Simile, Metaphor, 
Personification, Allegory, &c. These are called Figures, be- 
cause they proceed upon some likeness of form in difference 
of subject. When we compare the act of eating in a man and 
in a dog, the comparison is real, literal, a comparison in kind ; 
when we talk of digesting and ruminating knowledge, the 
comparison is illustrative or figurative. Since the origin of lite- 
rature, many thousands of such comparisons have been struck 
out ; every great literary genius has contributed to the stock; 
the profusion of Shakespeare being probably unmatched. 

These illustrative comparisons are of two kinds, depending, 
for their invention, on different mental conditions. Of the first 
kind are those that render an obscure subject clearer, as when 
we compare the heart to a force pump, the lungs to a bellows, 
and business routine to a beaten track. The expositor of 
difficult subjects and doctrines- avails himself, as far as his in- 
tellectual reach will go, of such illustrative similitudes. They 
are numerous in Plato. Among the moderns. Bacon is con- 
spicuous for both the number and felicity of his illustrations. 
Some have become household words. His ' Essay on Delays' 
may be referred to, as exemplifying his profuse employment of 
similes. 

The invention of such similes is a pure intellectual effort 
of Similarity. They suppose previous acquaintance with the 
regions v/hence they are drawn, an acquaintance terminating 
in deep or vivid impressions, enhanced by a sensibility for 
the material of them. 

The other class comprehends those serving for ornament, 
or emotional effect ; as when one man is extolled as god-like, 
another compared to the brutes. Here the likeness involves 
a common emotion, with or without intellectual similitude. 
For their invention, a deep emotional susceptibility must be 
combined with the force of intellect. He that would command 
similitudes illustrative of a pathetic situation, must have often 
been pathetically moved in actually contemplating the original 
objects of comparison. 



LITEKAEY GENIUS. 149 

An unlearned genius like Bunyan knows the commoner 
appearances of nature, the experience of the mind open to 
every one, the more familiar aspects of society and manners, 
and the compass of religious doctrine. Out of these materials, 
Bunyan drew his similes and his allegories ; being favoured 
by a special susceptibility to the concrete world of sense, by 
strong emotions superadding an element of interest to a 
greater or less namber of objects, and, we must suppose also, 
by large general power of Similarity. 

Shakespeare, without being learned, had more reading than 
Bunyan, Still his resources were to a great degree personal 
observation, and common things. His glances around him 
impressed the things on his mind with a force out of all propor- 
tion to the attention that he could have given them. Natural 
scenery, natural objects, human character, his own mind, 
society and its usages, were absorbed by him, as material for 
his identifying and constructive faculty. He had a moderate 
knowledge of books, which extended his sphere of allusion to 
foreign scenes, and to the incidents and personalities of the 
ancient world ; and his study of the subject of one play gave 
him a stock of allusive references to be employed incidentally 
in the others. 

Bacon had an eye for the concrete world about him, but 
his mental attention was divided between this and book study 
in philosophy, scholarship, politics, and law. His sphere of 
similitudes has a corresponding compass. 

Milton also had the concrete eye for the real world, a 
poet's interest in nature, and a vein of emotion that gave spe- 
cial impressiveness to whatever was large, vast, unbounded, 
mysterious in its immensity. He likewise had very great 
stores of reading, and had absorbed the scenes and pictures of 
remote countries and times. 

Literary comparisons being expressed in language, are 
very much subject to verbal conditions. The associations 
with words concur to bring some forward, and to keep others 
back. A great poet needs verbal profasion, as well as pic- 
torial suggestiveness. 

THE FINE ARTS IN GENERAL. 

20. The intellectual power of tracing similarity in 
diversity is most conspicuous in Poetry and the Literary 
Art. It may enter, in some degree, into Painting, Sculp- 
ture, Architecture, and Design. But, as regards the 



150 AGREEME^^T — LAW OF SIMILARITY. 

effusive arts — Music, Elocution, Stage- display, Dancing, 
and the graces of Demeanour — the mental endowment even 
of the greatest genius has but little that is purely intel- 
lectual; the elements are — Sensibility, and the compass 
and power of the Organs engaged. 

What has been said under the foregoing head is sufficient 
for the Poetical Art. In Painting, it is conceivable and Ukely 
that the resources of the artist should be aided by a far-reach- 
ing power .of Similarity ; in recalling scenes to select from, and 
combine, he draws upon his past experience, brought up by 
the force of likeness in unlikeness ; although his final appro- 
priation must be governed entirely by his sense of artistic 
effect. An artist may have great intellectual forces, with only 
a moderate sensibility to the refinements of composition ; in 
other words, great profusion and little taste. It would be 
easy to produce literary artists of this character ; and per- 
haps we may regard Michael Angelo, as a parallel in 
Painting. 

In the other class of Fine Arts, typified by Music, it seems 
unsuitable to appeal to an unusual force of the identifying 
faculty. The fine Sensibility is the great requisite ; second to 
which is the endowment of the Active Organ concerned. A 
great musician depends principally on delicate ear for pitch ; 
an elocutionist on the ear for cadence ; an actor superadds the 
eye for gesture and pictorial elements. 

SIMILARITY IN ACQUISITION AND MEMORY. 

21. To whatever extent new acquisitions are the repeti- 
tion of old, there is an intellectual saving. Now, it being 
necessary that the old should be recovered to the view, any 
superiority in the identifying faculty will be apparent in 
diminishing the labour of acquirement. 

It is of some importance to remark, that our more 
complicated acquisitions are a kind of patchwork. The 
memory of a scene in nature is the tacking together of pre- 
vious memories. If a pleader, after once reading a brief, can 
remember its contents, the reason is that only a small part is 
new. In geometry, one demonstration is so like another, 
that after a certain familiarit}^ with the matter of demonstra- 
tions, the fresh cost to the memory, in each, is very small. 

It is obvious, then, that by a greater reach of the identify- 
ing power, the means and resources of this piecing operation 



VALUE OF METHOD IN MEMORY. 151 

may be extended. The scientific man whose penetrating 
glance can recognize the smallest identity between something 
fresh and something already known, recovers that portion of 
the past for present use ; while he that is nnable to bring 
about the recovery, must learn the whole anew. This is a 
genuine and often realized distinction between one intellect 
and another. A mind like Bacon's, studying Law, would 
make tenfold strides, as compared with one of average endow- 
ment. 

The value of method, order, uniformity of plan, in aiding 
memory, is wholly explicable on the principle of making one 
acquisition serve for a great many occasions. When things are 
always put in the same places, we have only to form one local 
tie in our memory of each ; whereas, if tools and utensils are 
put away at random, there must be either a distinct local ad- 
hesion, or the trouble of a search as often as any one is used. 



CHAPTEE III. 
COMPOUND ASSOCIATIOK 

1. Associations, separately too weak, may, conjointly, 
be strong enough to revive a past experience. 

Hitherto we have assumed the links of association to be 
single or individual ; we must now consider the very frequent 
case of the union of several bonds of contiguity or similarity. 
The facts brought up in the course of the illustration will 
show that, here as elsewhere, union is strength. 

The combinations may be of Contiguity solely, or of 
mixed Contiguity and Similarity. Besides these purely intel- 
lectual bonds, an Emotion may contribute to the recall ; and 
we have farther to ascertain what influence ma}^ be exercised 
by the will or Volition. 

The general law may be stated thus : — 

Past actions, sensations, thonghts, or emotions, are re- 
called more easily, when associated either through 
contiguity or similarity, with more than one present 
object or impression. 



152 ' COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 



COMPOSITION OF CONTIGUITIES, 

2. In the Composition of Contiguities, we may dis- 
tinguish Conjunctions and Successions. 

Conjunctions, Most things affect the mind bv a pluraHty 
of impressions. So simple an object as a star, is an aggregate 
of hght, visible magnitude, and visible form ; a diamond is a 
greater aggregate ; a human being is more comphcated still. 
A link of association with any one of the component parts of 
these aggregates may be strong enough to recall the whole ; 
this would be single-handed contiguity. Or, a plurality of 
links, individually unequal to the recall, might compass it by 
their united force. A diamond mio^bt be supfg^ested to the 
mind, partly by some circumstance that recalled its brilliancy, 
partly by an alliance with its hardness. 

It is, however, when we pass beyond isolated objects to 
the aggregates made up by the various relationships of things, 
that we find the greatest scope for plurality of associations ; 
as in the connexions with locality, with persons, with uses, 
and with properties. 

Local associations play a great part in memory, both in 
single sufficiency, and in partnership with others. All things, 
with a fixed or usual locality, become connected in the mind 
with that locality. But a great many of these bonds are in- 
dividually too feeble ; we cannot, by thinking of the interior 
of a house, recall the whole of its furniture and contents. 
ISTevertheless, local connexions may eke out other ties also 
insufficient of themselves. We may not be able to remem- 
ber a mineral specimen by its being a certain ore of iron ; but 
some local association in a museum or cabinet may com- 
plete the recall of its visible aspect. It often happens to us 
to meet persons in the street, whom we have formerly seen, 
but cannot tell who they are ; something brings to mind the 
place of our former meeting, which, although of itself unable 
to effect the recall, in co-operation with the other, may be 
found adequate. Abercrombie relates that, walking in the 
street one day, he met a lady whose face was familiar, but 
whose name and connexions he could not remember. Some 
time after, he passed a cottage, to which he had been taken six 
months before, to see a gentleman who had met with an acci- 
dent on the road, and had been taken there insensible. He then 
remembered that the lady was the wife of that patient. The 
local association completed the defective link in his memory. 



MULTIPLE ASSOCIATIONS WITH PERSONS. 153 

Tlie connexions with, persons frequently unite witli other 
contiguous links. Objects becpme associated with their 
owners, makers, inventors, with all persons concerned in their 
use, or frequenting their locality. Many of those associations 
are imperfect in themselves, but capable of adding something 
to other associating bonds. A doctrine may be recalled partly 
by ifcs subject, and partly by its being a doctrine of Aristotle 
or of Locke. The buildings rendered famous by great men 
may be remembered through this bond, in conjunction with 
locality. 

We may adduce th.e converse case, the recall of persons 
by multiple associations. The relations of human beings are 
so numerous as to give frequent occasion to their being re- 
membered by the union of many bonds. Persons are asso- 
ciated with their name ; with locality, habitation, and places 
of resort ; with blood and lineage, a very powerful mental tie, 
in consequence of the strength of the family feelings ; with 
associates and friends; with occupation, pursuits, amusements ; 
with property and possessions ; with rank and position ; with 
the many attributes that make up character and reputation ; 
with a particular age ; with the time they have lived in ; with 
the vicissitudes and incidents that mark the course of their 
life. Desiring to recall the names of the Cabinet Ministers, 
we might think of them first as enumerated in a list; if we 
failed to remember any one or more, we should then recall the 
departments of state, next the leading men in the Lords and 
in the Commons, and so on, till everyone was brought up to 
mind. 

The connexion with uses and properties is a frequent means 
of association, both single and in combination. In recalling 
some great exhibition of works of industry, we assist the local 
alliances with the associations of use ; we go over mentally 
the implements of Agriculture, Mining, Engineering, War ; 
wearing apparel, furniture, &c. So with regard to the natural 
properties of things — the physical and chemical properties of 
a salt, the distinguishing marks of a vegetable species, the 
anatomy of an animal. L'on, nickel, and cobalt are remem- 
bered in part by their magnetic properties ; the simple bodies 
in chemistry are associated with the idea of simplicity ; the 
oxides with their containing oxygen. 

Successions. Among the various kinds of succession ad- 
verted to, under Contiguity, there may be cases of combina- 
tion. The memory of any series of events may be assisted by 
collateral and concurring series, or by conjunctions, such as 



154 COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 

above described. In the grand succession of our total ex- 
perience in the Order of Time, many intermediate links that 
fail us, when exclusively relied on, are yet able to count in 
combined action. Our historical recollections are almost 
always composite ; the main thread is helped by collateral 
currents, conjunctions, and associations ; and we are so well 
aware of this, that, whenever we are at a loss, we make an 
express search for such additional aids. To remember any 
considerable series of events, say in English history, we should 
have to avail ourselves of concurring associations with persons, 
places, striking incidents, casual conjunctions. Thinking of 
the 16th century, we remember the two great monarchs be- 
tween whose reigns it was almost equally divided ; with their 
personalities many of the events are associated so strongly as 
to be recalled by that single link ; others less strongly, and 
recoverable only in combination with a different link, as the 
date or order of time. Localities and local objects — the 
metropolis, the Tower, Tilbury fort, the monasteries — contri- 
bute additional ties, some sufficient in themselves, the rest 
useful in raising other links to the point of sufGiciency. 

Language, The coherence of names, and of trains of lan- 
guage, is a very large fraction of our total acquisitions. We 
are ofteu aided here by composite links. When unable to 
recall a name, we fall back upon the circumstances of last 
hearing it, or on some other known bond of connexion. 

Many of our recollections are a mixture of language with 
our conceptions of things. A discourse heard impresses us 
partly as a train of words, partly as a train of thoughts, 
images, and feelings ; the remembrance of it is therefore of a 
compound nature. The learner in any subject, as Geometry, 
depends partly on his verbal memory, partly on his memory 
for the actual conceptions, the lines, angles, circles, &c. A 
pictorial description, is held by verbal associations in conjunc- 
tion with the hold of the purely pictorial elements. In all 
such cases, defects in the one train may be supplied from the 
other. 

COMPOSITION OF SIMILAKITIES. 

3. The case of plurality of points of likeness contri- 
buting to tlie recall of something past, is sufficiently re- 
presented under the Law of Similarity. 

It is merely a case of greater resemblance, the effect of 
which is to augment the chances of recall. If a thought, re- 



SECOND-RATE TALENT. 155 

sembling in the subject some one previonsly known, has also 
a resemblance in the language, the operation of similarity in 
restoring the fact is so much the more certain. If we are 
reading a- work which has imitated, or borrowed from, some 
other work that we have known, the similarity does not strike 
at first, but as we go on, the increasing number of resembling 
points brings on the flash of recognition. Wherever we have 
any means of increasing the similarity, and reducing the di- 
versity, between what is present and what is out of mind, we 
necessarily provoke the reviving encounter. 

MIXED CONTIGUITY AND SIMILARITY. 

4. Things first brought together by the stroke of Simi- 
larity are afterwards retained by the help of Contiguity. 

A man of inventive reach of mind brings up a new simile, 
or achieves a great identification in science. The two remote 
things thus brought together may then be made coherent by 
contiguous association ; the recall at first due to genius is 
afterwards caused by memory. It is thus that we remember 
the fetches of great poets, and the scientific generalities that 
are the triumphs of modern discovery. 

There is, however, an intermediate stage, wherein great 
strokes of Similarity may not have become matter of pure 
memory by Contiguity, but are recovered partly by the force 
of the similarity, and partly by the aid of a nascent, but in- 
complete, contiguous association. It is by this mixed or 
united hold, that a second-rate mind can appropriate and use 
the inventions of original minds, before they have become so 
hackneyed and common as to be in everybody's memory. It is 
in the same way that we can retain scientific truths, through 
our own perception of their generalizing sweep, when once 
they have been brought to our view. No man could take hold 
of any large amount of scientific doctrines, without seeing 
for himself the similarities that they involve, besides his 
memory of the statements of them. We can, after Newton, 
compare Terrestrial with Celestial gravity, and keep in mind 
his law by the force of the similarity that makes one recall 
the other;' we are also assisted by the contiguous junction of 
the two facts in the wording of the law. 

5. The reviving stroke of Similarity may be aided by 
the "proximity of the things desired. 

A poet living in the country falls readily upon rural 



156 COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 

images. The books tliat we have lately read are tlie most 
likely to furnisli parallels to any present subject. Hence, an 
important rule for assisting invention — namely, to refresh our 
minds witb the subjects where we expect to find the identities 
that we are in quest of. A natural philosopher is in need of 
certain m.athematical formulae, but is unable to discover those 
that are suitable ; his resource is to renew his mathematical 
studies for a time, thereby coming into closer mental proxi- 
mity with the whole range of the department. Gibbon tells 
us that he replenished his resources of sarcasm, by perusing 
annually Pascal's Provincial Letters. So a poet might pre- 
pare himself for composing in the Spenserian stanza, by fami- 
liarizing himself with the Faerie Queen, and the other models. 
In whatever point a writer either feels intellectual weakness, 
or desires to be unusually strong, he should keep close com- 
panionship with the highest examples of the quality. If he 
aspires to elevated diction, his flight will be aided by frequent 
recurrence to ^schylus and Milton. 

6. The bond of similarity is sometimes artificially 
employed as a help to Memory. 

The art of Mnemonics, or artificial memory, among other 
devices, uses a combination of similarity and contiguity. 
One of the simplest examples is the use of alliteration ; the 
sequence of words 'life and liberty' is better remembered 
than 'life and freedom.' The effect would also arise from the 
arrangement of a series of leading names in the alphabetical 
order of their commencing letters. Verse is a mnemonic aid ; 
knowing the metrical form that a saying must assume, we have 
already a certain hold of it by similarity, Vvdiich will in part 
make up for the weakness of the contiguous bond. 

Another mnemonic art, applicable to the learning of a string 
of words, as the exceptions to a rule in grammar, is to arrange 
them so as to have a connexion of meaning. Thus, in English, 
there are certain verbs that are followed by other verbs in the 
infinitive without the use of the preposition *to.' For remem- 
bering these more easily, we might cast them thus: — feel, hear, 
see (senses), will, shall, may, can, do, have (auxiliaries), let, bid, 
make, dare, durst, must, need (different forms of permission and 
compulsion). 

THE ELEMENT OF FEELING. 

7. The link of*Feeling may enter powerfully into com- 
posite association. 



EMOTIONAL CONTROL OF THE THOUGHTS. 157 

The association of objects and feelings has been already 
noticed (Contiguity, § 80). The consequences, which are 
numerous and far-reaching, will be still farther traced in the 
description of the higher emotions. 

A present feeling is a power in the mind, retaining and 
reviving the objects that are in harmony with it, and repelling 
such as are discordant, or merely indifferent. In an affec- 
tionate mood, the thoughts and images partake of love and 
tenderness. The habitual egotist has a facility in recalling 
facts for his own glorification. 

When a number of things are equally open to be suggested 
by the intellectual bonds, the emotional state gives the pre- 
ference. The thoughts of persons of intense feelings, and of 
small intellectual power, have the monotonous stamp of the 
prevailing emotion ; such are fond and weak-minded mothers, 
exclusive devotees to business, and enthusiastic temperaments 
in general. The plausibility of characters in fiction or romance 
is made to depend on this circumstance. All the thoughts 
and expressions of a Shylock bear the cast of the feelings 
attributed to him. 

INFLUENCE OF VOLITION. 

8. The influence of the Will iu intellectual production 
is indirect. 

'No mere urgency of motive can make a feeble bond 
stronger. If one's life were to depend upon an effort of 
memory beyond the pitch of the formed adhesion, it would be 
of little avail. 

(1) A powerful Motive, by exciting the system, may 
exalt the intensity of the mental processes. 

Any great pain to be avoided, or pleasure to be com- 
manded, is accompanied with an increased nervous action, 
under which all the powers are enhanced, including the forces 
of revival by contiguity and similarity. The effect of increased 
cerebral action is seen in the extreme case of the delirium of 
fever, during which long- forgotten trains have sometimes been 
revived with minute fidelity. The greatest stretches of inven- 
tion usually require a more than ordinary cerebral excitement, 
sometimes worked up by physical stimulants, but commonly 
arising in the voluntary effort. 

(2) The Will operates under the form of Attention, or 
mental concentration upon special objects present to the 
view. 



158 COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 

It is probable that a greater force of attention, directed 
upon what is present, will in some degree quicken the power 
to revive the associated past. In diflB.culb recollection, we 
assume this to be the case ; anxious to recall the name of a 
distant hill, we gaze upon the hill for some time, thinking 
thereby to add to the chance of the recovery. We can do the 
same with a mere mental image : the will fixes the mental 
attention as well as the bodily — a fact very much in favour of 
the doctrine as to the seat of revived impressions. If we come 
to a stand in repeating a discourse, we dwell strongly upon 
the last remembered words ; if a local association snaps, we 
concentrate the mind upon the part next the break. 

(3) The Will prompts the search after collateral links. 

It has been seen, that, by uniting several links, each too 
weak of itself, we may form a compound that will be suflB- 
cient. Kow, by a voluntary act, we can go ofi* in search of 
these collateral bonds. Not remembering in the order of time, 
all the chief events of a given century, we can, by mere 
voluntary determination, pass to other links, as persons, 
places, and notable circumstances. 

The power of the Will over the trains of thought, through 
these indirect means, may be considerable. We may not at 
once determine what thoughts shall arise, but, of those that 
have arisen, we can determine the attention upon some rather 
than upon others ; the withdrawal of the attention from any 
one will nullify its power of farther reproduction. We thus 
refrain from pursuing trains not available for the purpose in 
hand. If we are building up a geological speculation, we 
confine our local recollections to geological features. 

It may be remarked as frequently occurring, that although 
there are present to the mind one or more objects, each richly 
associated with mental trains, yet there is nothing actually 
suggested. The inertness may be owing to various causes, 
highly illustrative of the workings of the intellect. It may 
arise from mere exhaustion, indolence, or inactivity. The 
condition of the mind and brain in respect of activity, is very 
variable, and very much within our control. Or, again, the 
forces of the mind may have got into a set track or attitude, 
opposing a certain resistance to the assumption of any other 
trains of thought; as when some one subject engrosses our 
attention, so that even during a break in the actual current 
of the thoughts, other subjects are not entertained. And, 
farther, when numerous solicitations on different sides are 



CONFLICTING POINTS OF VIEW. 159 

nearly equally balanced, the result is a kind of intellectual 
suspense ; when an object is associated equally with many 
outgoing trains, as the sun, or the sea, no start is made till 
some concurring links point to ^ one definite movement. If 
the sea is stormy and we are contemplating a sea voyage, we 
are led ofi* into all the trains of recollection of our seafaring 
experience. 

OBSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATIONS. 

9. The power to assist includes the power to resist. 
Any agency that is helpful when with us, is obstructive 
when against us. This is fully applicable to the case of 
concurring associations. 

It often happens that we fail to remember a name, from 
having the mind pre-occupied with a wrong syllable. So 
when things are lost ; should we accidentally be prepossessed 
with some mistaken locality, or some erroneous supposition, 
we have not the full benefit of our power of recollection in the 
matter ; at some other time, when the wrong prepossession has 
left us, our memory may be quite adequate to the recall. 

The history of science would furnish many instances of dis- 
coveries kept back by the force of a prejudice or pre-occu- 
pation, some false bent or cue once getting hold of men's 
minds. Several of the glimpses of Aristotle in Psychology were 
nearer the truth than the views that long prevailed after him ; 
not so much from his superior genius, as from his not being 
involved in the, mazes of an ultra- spiritualistic philosophy. It 
is remarked of Priestley, that though he began his researches 
in Chemistry with little knowledge of what had been already 
done, he entered on the subject free from the prejudices that 
warped the judgment and limited the view of the educated 
chemists. 

Obstructive associations may be traced, on a grand scale, 
in the conflict of difierent modes of viewing the objects and 
occurrences of the world. There is a standing hostility 
between the Artistic and the Scientific modes of looking at 
things, and an opposition less marked bet^^een the Scientific, 
or the Theoretical, and the Practical points of view. The 
artistic mind is obstructed by the presence of considera- 
tions of scientific truth ; and the scientific mind, bent on being 
artistic, walks encumbered, and with diminished energy. 
Poetic fiction is never . so brilliant as when the poet is un- 
trammeled by a regard to truth. 



160 COMPOUND ASSOCIATION. 

A good instance of tlie obstructiveness of incompatible 
ideas is found in the eflfort of guessing riddles and conun- 
drums. These usually turn upon the equivocal meanings of 
words. Now a mind that makes use of language to pass to the 
serious import or genuine meanings, is disqualilied from follow- 
ing out the play of equivocation, not because the requisite 
associations do not exist, but because these are overborne by 
others inimical to the whole proceeding. 

ASSOCIATION OF CONTRAST. 

10. It being known as a fact^ that objects, on many 
occasions, recall their contraries ; Contrast, or Contrariety, 
has been admitted among the forces that revive past 
thoughts. The influence may be analyzed as follows : — 

(1) Contrast is a phase of the primary function of mind, 
named Discrimination or Eelativity. 

If every state of feeling and of knowledge implies a tran- 
sition, and is therefore a double or two-sided fact, our know- 
ledge is essentially a cognition of contraries. Heat means, 
not an absolute state, but the shock of a transition from cold ; 
the recent cold is as essential to the fact as the present heat. 
When we think of heat, we have a tacit reference to cold ; 
when we think of ' up,' we have a tacit reference to * down.' 
To pass into the contrary cognition in these cases, is merely 
to reverse the order of the couple, to make cold the explicit, 
and heat the implicit element. 

(2) Contrasts are frequently suggested by Contiguity. 

A great number of the more usual contrasts acquire a 
farther connexion through the habitual transitions of thought 
and speech. Our memory contains numerous associated 
couples, — up and down, great and small, rich and poor, true 
and false, life and death. 

When we come to understand the value of contrast as a 
Hhetorical device both for intensifying the expression of 
feeling, and for clearness in expounding doctrine, we acquire 
the habit of introducing contrasts on all important occasions. 

(3) The mutual suggestion of contraries may be partly 
due to Similarity. 

There is an old maxim that contraries must have a ground 
of likeness. This is true of all contraries up to the highest 
contrast of all (Object and Subject). Matter and Space are 
in the genus Extension (the Object) : Intellect and Feeling 



CONTKAST AN EMOTIONAL EFFECT. 161 

are both under Mind, the subject ; blue and red are in the 
class colour. Thus, while the highest opposition can be sug- 
gested only by Relativity or pure Contrast, the lower kinds 
introduce an element of similarity in their generic agreement. 
Wealth may suggest poverty, partly by the opposition, and 
partly by leading us to think of the generic subject — human 
conditions. 

It is by the mutual attraction of similars, that we are 
made alive to contradictions. We hear a certain affirmation ; 
the sameness of subject recalls a previous affirmation of an 
opposite tenor. The announcement that a certain rock is of a 
sedimentary origin, brings to our mind by similarity the idea 
of the same rock, coupled with the assertion of its igneous 
origin. 

(4) Many Contrasts are stamped on the mind through 
Emotion. 

Apart from the influence of the shock of change, necessary 
to consciousness in any degree, the inind may be quickened 
by strong special emotions. When any quality is in excess, 
as heat, cold, exercise, rest, we are urged to think of the 
opposite as a desired relief. The disappointment of our ex- 
pectations may take the form of a shock of contrast ; looking 
for favour, we may encounter contumely ; a journey for health 
may confirm our malady. 

The contrasts of Poetry and Art are transitions for height- 
ening an effect. 

The moralist delights in pourtraying the contrasts in 
human conditions — the pride of prosperity with the chances 
of misfortune and the certainty of the last end. 



CHAPTEE IV. 
CONSTEUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

1. By means of association, the mind has the power 
to form Combinations, or aggregates, different from any- 
thing actually experienced. 

The processes named Imagination, Creation, Constructive- 
ness, have not been taken account of in the preceding exposi- 



162 CO>iSTRUCTlVE ASSOCIATION. 

tion. In Similarity, we had before us a power tending to 
originality and invention ; but the genins of the mechanical 
inventor, the man of science, the poet, the painter, the mnsi- 
cian, implies something more complex. In the steam-engine, 
in the science of geometry, in Paradise Lost, we find something 
beyond the grandest fetches of Similarity. 

I^evertheless, the intellectual powers already described are 
sufi&cient for these creations ; the addition consists of a stimu- 
lus and guidance supplied by the Feelings and the Will. 
This will appear from the examples. 

MECHANICAL CONSTEUCTIVENESS. 

2. In Mechanical Acquisition, we have often to com- 
bine movements into new groupings. An exercise of 
volition, directed to the movements separately/ brings 
them together in the first instance. 

In learning to dance, the separate positions are first 
acquired; when the will can command these, the pupil is 
directed to combine them into the steps and figures ; these af 
last become coherent by the plastic force of Contiguity. It is 
the same with military drill, and with education in the manual 
arts ; the learner is first able to command certain elementary 
movements, and then unites them, in time and order, as 
directed. 

Sometimes the process is to dissociate and suppress move- 
ments, as in endeavouring to walk without swinging the 
arms. The instrumentality is the same. One effort of voli- . 
tion determines the complex movement ; another is directed 
to the members to be arrested ; and the required act is the 
result of the differential operation. 

When a complex act has to be performed, made up of timed 
and ordered movements, successive attempts are needed to 
make them fall into their places. Thus, in learning to swim, 
we throw out the limbs, by separate volitions, but cannot at 
first attain to the exact rhythm of the swimmer. After a time, 
we make the effort that happily combines every movement in 
the proper order. The difficulty is at an end : we then keep 
up the successful conjunction, and fall into it, at pleasure, 
ever afterwards. 

These constructions of our mechanical or muscular ener- 
gies, exemplify the three conditions or essentials of the Con- 
structive process of the Intellect. 

(1) There must be a command of the separate elements- 



CONDITIONS OF THE CONSTRUCTIVE PROCESS. 163 

The more thorougli and complete this com.mand, the easier is 
the work of uniting them into new combinations. 

(2) There must be an idea^ plan, or conception, of the de- 
sired combinations ; some mental delineation of it, such as to 
make us aware when we have succeeded. This idea may be a 
model for imitation, as the fugleman of a company at drill ; 
or it may be a conception of the effect to be produced, as in 
laying out grounds. In other cases, it is a verbal combina- 
tion or description, as when we are told to conceive a gold 
mountain. 

(3) There is a series of tentatives, or a process of trial and 
error. The distinct volitions are put in exercise to bring on 
the separate movements, but these do not at first chime in to 
the joint result; the sense of failure determines another 
trial, and then another, until some one prove successful. 
The moment of success is attended with a certain satisfaction, 
or elation, under which arises a re-inforced prompting to 
maintain the fortunate combination ; and the circumstances 
are then, in the highest degree, favourable for the beginning 
of a permanent association, 

VERBAL CONSTRUCTIVENESS. 

3. Verbal constructiveness is exemplified, first, in learn- 
ing to Articulate. 

A certain power of uttering the elementary articulations — 
the vowels, consonants, and simpler syllables — being pre- 
supposed, it is desired to combine these into words, under the 
spur of imitation. The ear supplies the type to be conformed 
to ; the will urges various tentatives ; there is a sense of these 
being unconformable to the type, which invites renewal, until 
conformity is attained. The child can pronounce the syllables 
ma?/, ree, in separation ; it hears Manj, with the wish to say 
the word ; the first endeavours are sensibly wrong ; they are 
renewed, and, at some favourable conjuncture, the two syllables 
'fall exactly together in the right order. The ear is satisfied 
and delighted, and a gush of nervous influence accompanies the 
satisfaction, which goes a good way to cement the connexion ; 
every succeeding endeavour involves fewer stumbles, and the 
association is at last completed. 

The child's initial difl&culties in this acquirement are owing 
to the imperfect command of the elementary sounds. The 
voice is not at first formed to them, and the voluntary link 
that arouses them is for a long time wanting. 



164 CONSTKUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

4. The combining of words into Sentences is a farther 
exercise of constructiveness. 

To imitate literally a sentence heard, is snbstantiallj the 
same effort as now described. A farther advance is exempiitied, 
when the child constructs new sentences to suit new mean- 
ings. JFrom the combination 'good boy,' and the separate 
name ' Tom/ conpled with an approving sentiment towards 
Tom, the will is prompted to dissociate and recombine the 
form, ' Tom,' so as to make ' good Tom.' The idea or type in 
the mind is to convey some expression having the same force 
towards the new subject, as the old form has towards 'boy;' 
there must be a feeling, from analogy, that 'good Tom' 
answers the end; and accordingly, when this is struck out, there 
follows the throb of successful endeavour. As before, the more 
or less easy attainment of the end depends on the familiarity 
with the constituents. When a considerable variety of sen- 
tences have been mastered, the process of dropping out and 
taking in, to answer new meanings, is performed with the 
utmost rapidity. 

5. The highest Combinations of Language fulfil the 
same conditions. 

It is necessary, first, to lay up in the memory a certain 
store of names (allied to things), and of formed combinations 
of these into afiirmations, clauses, sentences, and connected 
portions of discourse, mth meanings attached. This acquired 
store contains the material of new compositions ; the more 
abundant and the more familiar the verbal sequences at com- 
mand, and the nearer they approach to our requirements, the 
less troublesome will be the work of composition. A meaning 
has to be expressed, partly, but not wholly, coinciding with 
expressed meanings already laid up in the memory; the 
nearest of these previous forms are recalled by the associating 
forces ; we operate upon them by combination, by excision, and 
by subs itution, until our mind is satisfied that the resulting 
verbal -onstruction embraces the subject proposed. 

The compliance with other conditions, besides the signify- 
iuL of a iieaning, demands greater resources to start from, or 
else iLiore numerous tentatives. Not to mention the forms of 
grammar, which are comparatively easy to satisfy when the 
stored up arrangements have been grammatical, there may be 
in the mind certain ideals of perspicuity, of terseness, of 
elegance, of melody, of cadence, all wluch have to be complied 



COJNSTEUCTIVENESS IN LANGUAGE. 165 

with bj the method of tentatives. It is then requisite to cora- 
pose many sentences to the same meaning, in order to choose 
one that combines the other requisites. But in order to em- 
body each one of those high demands, we must have already, 
in the memory, numerous forms adapted to each ; forms of 
perspicuous statement, of brevity, of elegance, of melody. We 
should also have a very decided feeling of the result when 
attained. 

To take the example of Versification. The power of verse- 
making supposes a memory largely stored with verses. A 
given meaning has to be expressed in verse. The prose mind, 
following the lead of meaning, would first light upon a prose 
form, and, on that as a basis, would proceed to make the 
accommodations needed for verse. The true poet, however, 
is he that ' lisped in numbers, for the numbers came ; ' his 
first basis of operations is a metrical form ; this is shaped and 
modified to comply with the signification, yet never departing 
from metre. 

FEELINGS OF MOVEMENT. 

6. We may, by help of experience, create new com- 
binations in the Ideas or Feelings of Force and Movement. 

The most important muscular feelings, for the purposes of 
the intellect, are our numerous impressions of resistance, 
pressure, movement, embodied in the various muscles and 
muscular groupings. Through the hand and arm, we have 
engrained impressions or ideas of different degrees of weight 
and resistance — one pound, four pounds, twenty pounds. It 
is possible to construct intermediate grades or varieties of 
quantity. Given the idea of a one pound weight, and the 
idea of a double or a treble, we can, by an efibrt of construc- 
tion, form some approximate idea of two pounds or three 
pounds. The main condition is still the vividness of our hold 
of the constituent notions. The greatest difficulty lies in 
knowing when we have succeeded, it not being in our power 
to say exactly that the constructed impression corresponds to 
the double or the triple of the original. 

The graduation of our muscular efforts to a certain end, 
as hitting a mark, or striking a measured blow, supposes the 
power of interpolating shades of muscular consciousness. The 
feelings of Architectural fitness are an excellent example of the 
same constructiveness. From our experience of the weight 
and the tenacity of small pieces of stone, we take upon our- 



166 CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

selves to judge what bulk of support is needed, in a column, 
for masses altogether beyond our means of direct estimate. 

It is bj a vague efibrt of constructiveness, applied to our 
muscular acquirements, that we conceive untraversed dis- 
tances, as the remote Alpine summits, the moon and the stars. 
We increase numerically known exertions of our own — that is, 
combine them with notions of multiplied quantity, and thereby 
obtain representations, doubtless feeble and inadequate, of 
these vast distances. 

The emotional feelings of movement fall under the analogy 
of the emotions generally, which are given in a separate head. 

CONSTRUCTIVENESS IN THE SENSATIONS, 

7. In the Sensations of the Senses, whether Emotional 
or Intellectual, there is large scope for original construc- 
tions. 

In the lower senses, as those of Organic Life, Taste, and 
Smell, the principal effect is emotional, and is attended by the 
circumstances special to the feelings. We may, by a great 
effort, conceive new forms of organic pain or pleasure, pro- 
vided they are resolvable into elements known to us. If it be 
true, that the pains of parturition are of the nature of spasm, 
or cramp, they may to some extent be conceived through that 
experience. The pain of gout may be realized through the 
knowledge of other modes of acute inflammatory pain. Many 
modes of acute pain are comparable to scalding heat. 

So with the pleasurable organic feelings. We all know 
what exhilaration is, and can conceive the general fact with 
varieties of mode. We may thence be made to conceive the 
exciting effect of some unknown stimulant, as opium or Indian 
hemp. 

The obstacle in such a case is the low intellectual per- 
sistence of these feelings ; we cannot, without considerable 
striving, recover an organic state under a present state of an 
alien character. Even the familiar pleasui^es of eating are not 
easy to revive ideally in their absence. The constructive 
exertion is fruitless, if the elements have no abiding hold of 
the mind. 

Tastes, as being more intellectually persistent than organic 
states, are more constructible. From the experience of 
relishes, sweets, bitters, &c., we might conceive a complex 
taste never known, a new mixture of relish and bitterness, of 
sweet and sour. So with Smells. We might endeavour to 



TOUCH. — HEAKING. — SIGHT. 167 

conceive assafoetida from garHc, or an oriental spice- grove 
from our own flowers and perfumes. 

In the higher senses, the examples are abundant. In 
Touch, Hearing, and Sight, the pleasures and pains, as being 
more intellectually persistent, are more construct] ble, than the 
feelings of the lower senses ; while the sensations whose char- 
acter is knowledge, and not feeling, are pre-eminently disposed 
to the combining operation. 

We have a large experience of Touches, soft, pungent, 
hard, rough, smooth, and may often be called upon, to realize 
new varieties. Many minerals have specialities of touch; 
for example, asbestos. If we had never touched cork, we 
shoald have to combine mentally the several elements, namely, 
a special kind of soft touch, warmth, and lightness. 

The textile bodies have specialities of touch ; and from 
the experience of a certain number we are qualified to con- 
ceive others, if resolvable into the known. The. blind must 
frequently perform this operation. 

In the sense of Touch, considered as including muscular 
exertion, there is scope for constructing grades of tactual size 
and form, as well as pressure and resistance. 

In the sense of Hearing, there is frequent occasion for con- 
strue tiveness. We maybe asked to conceive unheard sounds, 
as the muttering of an earthquake, the crash of a falling house, 
the shout of a battalion in a bayonet charge. The describer, 
in these cases, must assign some sounds known to us, such as, 
if combined and intensified, would approach the reality. An 
ear retentive for sounds generally, and a special familiarity 
with those to be combined, would be conditions of success. 

In Sight, constructiveness is facilitated by the intellectual 
quality of the sense. Given a dead colour, we could conceive 
it made brilliant or lustrous. It is a more doubtful matter 
whether we could make the construction supposed by Hume, 
namely, to interpose an unexperienced shade of colour. Inas- 
much a^ all the varieties of colour are reducible to three 
primary colours, there should be a possibility of picturing 
new shades. Hobbes's example, a mountain of gold, typifies a 
comparatively easy class of constructions, the alteration of 
colour in a given form ; such are a white crow, a room when 
painted, a sketch when the colours are laid in, London built 
of the stone of Edinburgh, or of Paris. Here we have to dis- 
miss or dissociate one element, and introduce another, an 
operation that may be very much thwarted or aided by the 
feelings : the colour most agreeable in itself will cling to us 



168 CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

bj preference. Another class involves the putting together 
of new shapes, as the mermaid, the dragon, the chimaera, 
Milton's pictures of Sin and Death. 

The ready hold of the elements to be combined is still the 
grand condition of success. Also, in order to possess ourselves 
permanently of a new image, by means of construction, we 
must continue or repeat the effort, as for any other desired re- 
membrance. 

CONSTRUCTION OF NEW EMOTIONS. 

8. Examples may be taken from the higher Emotions. 

The more simple Emotions, as Wonder, Fear, Love, Power, 
must be known by experience. Even although we be able to 
resolve into simpler elements. Self-complacency, Anger, the 
Intellectual Emotions, the Artistic and the Moral Feelings, yet 
some experience should be had of them as compounds, in order 
to enlarge the constructive basis. 

The simplest exercise of construction would be to change 
the degree of an emotion ; as in entering into the feelings of 
another person, habitually more or less courageous, loving, self- 
complacent, irascible, than one's-self. We should then have to 
multiply or diminish our known states of feeling, together with 
their collaterals and consequences. We should not merely 
endeavour to intensify our conception of courage, for example ; 
we should also deal with its occasions, its expression, and its 
results, which also, being multiplied, would support the attempt 
to magnify the proper emotion. As a considerable aid, we 
might go back to the occasion when our own feeling was acci- 
dentally stimulated to an intense degree. 

Any one feebly constituted in -the emotions generally would 
be disqualified from realizing a temperament of the opposite 
stamp unless by a very intense exertion. So it would be with 
a person of weak volition endeavouring to conceive a man of 
energy. There is a natural repugnance to the very attempt to 
pass so far out of one's own bounds ; whence the m^xim — to 
know a man we. must love him. 

A still more frequent exercise is to transfer a familiar emo- 
tion to a new object. This is the way that we enter into other 
men's tastes, and likings, their fears, hatreds, and antipathies. 
We have the feelings in ourselves, and we can by an effort of 
construction suppose them to invest otlier objects. Ambition 
ip, at bottom the same, whether for temporal power or for 
spiritual power ; for official command, or for intellectual and 
moral sway. The sentiment of worship is generically alike, 



TRANSFER OF EMOTIONS TO NEW OBJECTS. 169 

whatever be tlie objects of worship ; still, a considerable effort 
would be necessary for a Christian to enter into the manner of 
feehng of a Pagan, or for a Calvinist to sympathize with a 
Romanist. • 

The authors of Poetry and Romance have to unfold the 
workings of characters far removed from their own, which 
involves emotional constructiveness. In such cases, it is desir- 
able to check the imaginative adaptation, by actual observa- 
tion of individuals nearly approaching to the type in view. 
This is the usual course of novelists, when pourtraying a charac- 
ter far removed from their own. . Goethe's ' Pair Saint,' in 
Wilhelm Meister, was depicted from acquaintance with a real 
person. 

CONCRETING THE ABSTRACT. 

9. The forming, out of abstract elements, images in the 
Concrete, is an application of constructiveness. 

We may join together size, form, and colour into a con- 
crete visible image ; as when we are told to fancy to our- 
selves a golden ingot of given dimensions. So we may con- 
ceive a building from its plans, elevations, and known material. 
The facility in such cases, depends, for the most part, upon 
the ideal hold of colour. When there is great complication of 
form, something depends on the muscular retentiveness of the 
eye. 

Another case is the conceiving of a country from a map, 
the actual dimensions and the colours being also given. The 
mind must endeavour to regain as vividly as possible the 
memories most nearly corresponding to the prescribed ele- 
ments, and by a voluntary act hold them in the view till they 
fuse into a concrete. Or, we may start from a well-remem- 
bered concrete, and strike out and insert portions, till it suit 
the elements given. 

It is substantially the same operation to picture to our- 
selves minerals, plants, and animals, from their descriptions, 
with or without the aid of drawings. 

REALIZING OF REPRESENTATION OR DESCRIPTION. 

10. To realize Verbal descriptions, or other Eepresenta- 
tions of things not experienced, is a constructive process. 

This is but the continuation of the foregoing cases. Lan- 
guage, pictures, sculptured forms, models, and diagrams are 
modes of indicating the elements, whose mental combination 



170 CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. ' 

will give the idea of the object intended. It is a part of the 
K/hetorical Art, to show how to describe things so as to give 
the utmost aid to the mind in conceiving them. 

The realizing of things, not personally experienced, but 
brought before us in description or other indication, is the 
chief meaning of the act of Conceiving, or Conception, some- 
times treated as one of the intellectual faculties. It passes 
above memory, as being an exercise of Constructiveness, and 
falls below Imagination proper, as containing no exercise of 
originality or invention. 

CONSTEUCTIVENESS IN SCIENCE. 

11. The Abstractions, Inductions, Deductions, and 
Experimental Discoveries of Science, already included 
under similarity, also involve constructiveness. 

To begin with Abstraction. We may represent a form by 
an outline diagram as in Euclid. But this, as giving a 
definite size, colour, and material, is not an abstraction. The 
most perfect type of the abstract idea is the verbal definition, 
which is a construction of language adapted to exclude what- 
ever does not belong to the generalized attribute. The 
definition, * a line is length without breadth,' is a verbal con- 
struction, intended to give what belongs to the line in the 
abstract. So with the definitions of science generally ; inertia, 
polarity, heat, cell, animal, mind, and so on. They are, on 
the part of the first framers, exercises of original construction, 
proceeding tentatively till a form of words is arrived at, con- 
formable to all the individuals to be included in the generality. 

Induction presents no new pecuharity. All inductions 
have at last to be shaped and tied down by precise language, 
expressing neither more nor less than is common to the facts 
comprehended in each. Sometimes an induction is made up 
of numerical and geometrical elements, as the laws of Kepler, 
and Snell's law of Sines. These involve, in the first instance, 
discoveries of Similarity. 

The Deductive Sciences are made up of a vast machinery, 
exemplifying, in a remarkable degree, the creative or construc- 
tive, as opposed to the merely reproductive, processes of the 
mind. Nature does not provide cubic equations, chemical 
formula), or syllogistic schemes. These are built up by slow 
degrees, out of elementary sj^mbols, and the constructions are 
governed and checked by the ends to be served. 

The discoveries of Experimental Science are a more pal- 



THE GENIUS OF THE INVENTOR. 171 

pable« and obvious case of constrnctiveness, being mostly 
material operations. The first inventor of an instrument, as 
the air-pump, may have certain previous instruments to proceed 
upon, as the common water-pump, the instruments for enclos- 
ing air, &c.; these he tentatively modifies and adapts till the 
new end is answered. 

PRACTICAL CONSTRUCTIONS. 

12. In all the departments of Practice, there are 
examples of constructive arrangement. 

The discoveries and devices of the mechanical arts consist 
in machinery adapted to ends. They may be described in the 
terms above applied to the Experimental discoveries of science. 

The mere transfer, by a stroke of Similarity, of a machinery 
already in use to a new case, constitutes one department of 
practical invention ; as in the extension of the wheel and 
pinion to all kinds of machinery. But a very great number of 
advances in machinery are absolutely new creations, as in the 
first invention of the mechanic powers, the pump, the melting 
of metals, the devices of surgery. There must be a certain 
amount of accident to begin with ; but the accidents must fall 
into the hands of men prepared, by a peculiar cast of mind, for 
turning them to account. The main qualities of the inventive 
genius for practice are — intellectual attainments in the subject 
matter of the discoveries, activity of temperament applied to 
the making of experiments, and a charm or fascination for the 
subject. Such men as Kepler, Hooke, Priestley, James Watt, 
Sir William Herschell, combined the intellectual, active, and 
emotional constituents of great inventors in the arts. To re- 
sources of knowledge, they added an equally indispensable 
gift,— compounded of activity and emotional interest — namely, 
unwearied groping and experimentation. Mere handicraft 
skill is also an element in mechanical coHstructiveness. 

The like qualities belong to the contrivers of business ar- 
rangements, of social organization, law, and administration. 
Sometimes, a mere fetch of Similarity is enough, but oftener 
there is a long series of tentatives, ending in a construction 
suitable to the object sought. The organization of an army, 
the keeping of public accounts, the management of a large 
factory, are the result of innumerable trials checked by felt 
similarity to the ends. 

The quality of mind named Judgment, has a meaning with 
reference to constrnctiveness, being a clear sense of the pur- 



,172 CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

pose to be served, and of the fifcness of any constructioji for 
that purpose. Judgment is often put in contrast to genius, 
or intellectual fertility ; it does not provide the suggestions, 
but tests them. There are various obstacles to the exercise of 
a severe judgment of the fitness of means to ends ; — impa- 
tience of the labour of repeated constructions, self-conceit, 
and a feeble sense of the importance of the objects to be 
gained. Wellington is, by common consent, held to have 
been a man of pre-eminent judgment, at least in military 
afiairs. 

The adapting of one's views and plans to the opinions of 
others, as in party leadership, is a case containing all the ele- 
ments of constructiveness. According to the number of con- 
ditions to be fulfilled, th.e operation is the more protracted, 
the mental conflict more severe, and the greater the demand 
for variety of suggestions, the product of associating forces 
working on previous knowledge. Long experience, by accu- 
mulating constructions already formed, diminishes the labour 
in suiting the new cases. 

The imitating of a model is an instance of constructive- 
ness. The model has to be changed in certain particulars to 
suit the case in hand; as when one Act of Parliament is 
framed upon another. The facility of the construction de- 
pends on having fully present to the mind the model and the 
subject to be shaped according to it. If both the one and the 
other are perfectly familiar, the combination emerges easily 
and almost unconsciously. 

In Oratory, there is a perpetual series of constructions ; it 
is rare to repeat the same form of words. The speaker has 
before him, as disjecta membra, a certain meaning to be ex- 
pressed, and sentences expressing approximations to that 
meaning ; he has also an ideal of cadence, taste, and other 
requisites. Possessing a full mastery of all these elements, he 
puts them together in the required shape, with a rapidity that 
causes astonishment. The repartees of a ready wit are sur- 
prising from the quickness of the combining operation. Still 
more remarkable, in this respect, are the Italian Improvisa- 
tori ; their facility must be due to their abundance of ready 
formed combinations. 

CONSTRUCTIVENESS UNDER FEELING. 

13. It is the nature of certain constructions to satisfy 
some immediate feeling or emotion — as Fear, Love, Auger, 
Beauty, Moral Sentiment. 



EMOTIONAL INFLUENCES. 173 

We are supposed to be strongly occupied with an emotion, 
and to impart its tinge to tlie constructions of the thoughts. 

Under Compound Association, notice was taken of the 
agency of the feelings in mere reminiscence ; the same agency 
is farther displayed in new constructions. In strong Fear, 
we construct imaginations of danger; in general elation of 
mind, all our pictures take a sanguine form. The warm 
enthusiastic temperament of Wordsworth and of Shelley pour- 
trays nature in gorgeous hues. All images brought up by 
intellectual resuscitation are shaped and adapted till the^ 
conform to the reigning emotion. 

The exemplifications of this kind of constructiyeness are 
numerous. In literary compositions, we detect the emotional 
nature of the writers, as well as their knowledge and habits 
of thought ; the warm geniality of Shakespeare, the lofty 
pride of Milton, the mildness of Addison, the gloomy scorn of 
Swift. 

Bias, or the influence of the Feelings in truth and false- 
hood, means the shaping of facts and doctrines to suit a sen- 
timent. Properly speaking, this influence is completed by a 
constructive operation, the taking out and putting in of parts 
and particulars till the feeling is conformed to. It is thus 
that many theories of philosophy have been framed to suit the 
dignity of nature, or rather the sentiment of the dignified in 
the mind of the theorizer. 

The Myth is a construction so far governed by feeling as 
to give evidence only of feeling and not of fact. Such are the 
Grecian legends referring to the divine and heroic descent oi 
the several tribes ; and the legends of saints and remarkable 
persons in more recent times. 

The natural craving of the mind for something beyond 
fact and reality, is the motive for ideal and hyperbolical crea- 
tions. The intellectual processes supply the material ; various 
constructions are attempted and rejected, until the feeling is 
complied with. 

14. The Constructions of the Fine Arts generally are 
framed to suit the Esthetic Feelings, or Taste, of the 
artist. 

What these feelings are will be shown in detail afterwards. 
They are diflerent from the feelings that guide us in scientific 
and in practical constructions, from none of which can a 
motive (ultimately grounded on feeling) be absent. 

For example, there is no requirement in art more constant 



174 CONSTRUCTIVE ASSOCIATION. 

than the satisfying of the feeling of Harmony. Take the case of 
Poetry. The images must harmonize with the sentiments ; 
the characters, besides being consistent with themselves, must 
be placed in suitable scenes and situations ; the language must 
be intrinsically melodious, and also in keeping with the subject- 
matter. The composition has to be modified in submission to 
this all-pervading requirement. The tentatives may be numer- 
ous and protracted, but the elements of success are now ap- 
parent. There should be a command of language for selection. 
J'he feeling of harmony should be strong and delicate, and 
should be already embodied in numerous familiar examples. 
With abundant material and a decisive sense of the effect, the 
execution is a series of trials, continued till the result fully 
accords with the sensibility of the artist. 

A humourist has in his mind a certain subject, as Knight 
Errantry, and a certain feeling called humour, and with this feel- 
ing he possesses many instances of combinations for gratifying it. 
Out of the career of the Knight Errant, he singles out passages, 
susceptible of being combined into ludicrous images, as for 
example, the extravagances of the pursuit ; he heightens these, 
excludes any sobering or redeeming features, and also contrives 
situations for giving them in their most ludicrous form ; and at last 
produces a construction successfully appealing to the emotion that 
he starts with. 

15. Imagination will be found most characteristically 
exemplified in Fine Art Constriictiveness. The principal 
elements of Imagination are (1) Concreteness, (2) Origin- 
ality or Invention, and (3) the presence of an Emotion. 

(1) Imagination has for its objects the concrete^ the real or 
the actual, as opposed to abstractions and generalities, which 
are the matter of science, and occasionally of the practical 
arts. The full colouring of reality is supposed to enter into 
our imagination of a scene in nature, or of a transaction in 
history. To imagine the landing of Julius Caesar in Britain, 
is to be impressed with the visible aspect of the scene, in the 
same way — although without the vividness, accuracy, or 
completeness — as an actual spectator would remember it. 
Sensation, Memory, Conception, Imagination, alike deal 
with the fulness of the actual world, as opposed to mere 
abstractions. 

(2) Imagination farther points to some Originality, Novelty, 
Inventiveness, or Creativeness, on the part of the mind ima- 
gining, and is not a mere reproduction of previous forms. 
It ranks as a Constructive process, thus rising above both 



IMAGINATION SUPPOSES A PRESENT EMOTION, 175 

memory and conception. The name is occasionally used in 
the sense of Realizing a Description, or Conceiving what is 
represented to us through language ; but this usage is unde- 
sirable, as confounding two very different operations, while 
the inferior exercise is sufB.ciently denoted by other words. 
The prevailing employment of the term Imagination, is to 
express originality ; by a powerful imagination we mean a 
wide compass of creative effort, as in the highest productions 
of poetry or the other Fine Arts. The word in its best appli- 
cation, is identical with Fine Art Constructiveness, as will 
farther appear under the subsequent head. 

(3) Imagination is subject to some present emotion of the 
mind.' This needs explanation. All constructions are for 
some end, which must be a feeling in the last resort. A pump 
is cons tr acted to gratify the feeling of thirst, and other wants, 
all resolvable into feelings. A geometrical diagram is in- 
tended to give some satisfaction immediate or remote. 

The feelings or emotions ruling the constructions of Ima- 
gination are,- first, the Esthetic Emotions, or those of Fine 
Art. A construction that gratifies these is not included either 
in Science or in Practice. The Paradise Lost is a work of 
Imagination ; Euclid's Elements, and the Chinese Wall, are 
networks of Imagination. When a work of Utility is shaped, 
decorated, or adorned, to gratify sesthetic sensibility, it com- 
bines Imagination with practical constructiveness. 

Secondly, Imagination is allowed to be used for expressing 
the Mas given by present emotions to the constructions for 
Truth, or for Utility, as when we distort facts through our 
fears, likings, antipathies, or our artistic feelings. The per- 
verting intiuence of the feelings, either in matters of know- 
ledge, or in matters of practice, is often described as intruding 
Imagination into the province of Reason, although Reason itself 
must work for ends, and these ends must centre in feelings. 
There are feelings that are the legitimate goal of the reason ; 
and there are others that are not legitimate ; and to give way 
to these last (which are either aesthetic feelings, or in close 
alliance with them), is to fall under the sway of Imagination. 

The name Fancy, a corruption of phantasy (from the 
Greek phaiitasiay which had nearly the meaning of 'idea' in 
modern times, as opposed to sensation and actuality), is applied 
to those creations that are farthest removed from nature, fact, 
or sober reality. The pictures of Fairy land, and the super- 
natural, are creatures of the fancy. The light, sportive vein 
of Art, as contrasted with the thoughtful, grave, and serious, 



176 ABSTRlCTIOiSr — THE AJBSTRACT IDEA. 

is called fanciful. * Comus/ as compared with ' Paradise 
Lost,' is a work of fancy. 

Ideality, or the Ideal, is another name for Imagination, 
It notes more particularly the tendency to soar above the 
limits of the actual, and to combine scenes where our aspira- 
tions and desires may find gratification, if only in idea ; there 
being nothing to satisfy us in the world of reality. 



CHAPTEE v.* 

ABSTEACTIO:^^— THE ABSTEACT IDEA. 

NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

1. The first stage in Abstraction is to identify and 
compare a number of objects possessing similarity in 
diversity; as stars, mountains, horses, men, pleasures. 
Such objects constitute a Class. 

Until we have been struck with the resemblance of various 
things that also differ, we do not make a beginning in abstrac- 
tion. We feel identity among the stars in spite of their 
variety. There is something common to the state named plea- 
sure, amid much disparity. The things thus identified make 
a class, and the operation is called classifying, 

2. We are able to attend to the points of agreement 
of resembling things, and to neglect the points of differ- 
ence ; as when we think of the light of the heavenly 
bodies, or the roundness of round bodies. This power is 
named Abstraction. 

It is a fact that we can direct our attention, or our 
thoughts, to the points of agreement of bodies that agree. 
We can think of the light of the heavenly bodies, and make 
assertions, and draw inferences respecting it. So we can 
think of the roundness of spherical bodies, and discard the 
consideration of their colour and size. In such an object as the 
full moon, we can concentrate our regards upon its luminous 

* The four preceding chapters complete the systematic view of tho 
Intellect ; the three following embrace the leading controversies. 



TO ABSTEACT IS TO CLASSIFY. 177 

Character, wherein it agrees with one class of objects ; or upon 
its figure, wherein it agrees with another class of objects. We 
can think of the taste of a strawberry, either as agreeing with 
other tastes, or as agreeing with pleasures generally. 

In the case of concrete objects operating upon different senses, 
we can readily concentrate attention upon the properties of a 
single sense. Notwithstanding the solicitations of a plurality of 
senses at once, we can be absorbed with one ; we can be all eye, 
although also affected with sounds, and all ear, although also 
affected with sights ; the mental attention may flow in one ex- 
clusive channel of sense. "We may likewise, to some extent, give 
a dominant attention to the active or to the passive feelings of a 
sense. Thus, in sight, we can be more engaged Vv^ith the mus- 
cular than with the optical elements, and vice versa; but we 
cannot entirely separate the two. 

The special difficulty of abstraction occurs in the indivisible 
sensations of a sense ; every sound has a plurality of characters, 
intensity, volume, pitch, &c. ; to these we can give a separate 
attention, only by the method described in the next paragraph. 

3. Every Concrete thing falls into as many classes as it 
has attributes ; to refer it to one of these classes, and to 
think of the corresponding attribute, are one mental opera- 
tion. 

When a concrete thing before the view recalls others 
agreeing in a certain point, our attention is awake upon that 
point ; when the moon recalls other luminous bodies, we are 
thinking of its light ; when it recalls other round bodies, we 
are thinking of its roundness. The two operations are not 
different but identical. 

On this supposition, to abstract, or to think of a property 
in the abstract, is to classify under some one head. To ab- 
stract the property of transparency from water, is to recall, at 
the instance of water, window glass, crystal, air, &c. ; to ab- 
stract its liquidity, is to recall milk, vinegar, melted butter, 
mercury, &c. ; to abstract its weight is to bring it into com- 
parison with other kinds of gravitating matter. 

Hence abstraction does not properly consist in the mental 
separation of one property of a thing from the other proper- 
ties — as in thinking of the roundness of the moon apart from 
its luminosity and apparent dimension. Such a separation is 
impracticable ; no one can think of a circle without colour 
and a definite size. All the purposes of the abstract idea are 
served by conceiving a concrete thing in company with others 
resembling it in the attribute in question ; and by affirming 



178 ABSrHACTION — THE ABSTKACT IDEA. 

nothing, of the one concrete, but what is true of all those 
others. 

When we think of the moon in comparison with a circle 
drawn on paper, and make that the subject of a proposition, 
we affirm only what is common to these two things ; we re- 
frain from affirming colour, size, or position ; we confine our- 
selves to what is involved in the community of form. 

In abstract reasoning, therefore, we are not so much en- 
gaged with any single thing, as vdth a class of things. When 
we are discussing government, we commonly have in view a 
number of governments, alternately thought of; if we notice 
in any one government a certain feature, we run over the 
rest in our mind, to see if the same feature is present in all. 
There is no such thing as an idea of government in the ab- 
stract ; there is only possible a comparison of governments in 
the concrete ; the abstraction is the likeness or community of 
the individuals. To be a good abstract reasoner, one should 
possess an ample range of concrete instances. 

4. There are various cases, where we seem to approach 
to a pure Abstract Idea. 

(1) In some instances, we can perform a material separa- 
tion of one property from others. Thus the sweetness of wine 
depends upon its sugar ; the stimulating property is due to 
alcohol ; the bouquet to a certain ether. Now, all these ele- 
ments can be presented in separation. .This, however, is not 
abstraction ; every one of the substances is a concrete thing, 
having many other properties besides the one noted. Sugar 
is not mere sweetness ; nor is alcohol a stimulant in the 
abstract. 

(2) In the Lineal Diagrams of Geometry, the substance is 
attenuated to a bare form ; solidity is absent, and no more 
colour is left than is necessary to the outline of the figure. 
Still, the object is concrete. The colour of the line is essential 
to its purpose ; and there is a definite size. When studying 
the circle from a diagram, we must take heed of affirm- 
ing any tiling that is not common to other round things. 
One way of observing the precaution is to keep before the 
view a plurality of round objects, differing in colour and in 
size ; each is then checked by the others. It is the prin- 
ciple of sound generalization to affirm nothing of a class but 
what is true of all its recognized members. 

There may be indistinctness, or a want of vividness, in our 
conceptions of concrete things ; we may fail in realizing the 



VERBAL DEFINITION THE PUREST ABSTRACTION. 179 

ricliness of colouring and the minute tracery of an object ; we 
may think of the form under a dim, hazy colour, far below 
the original ; still this is not abstraction ; the colour and the 
form are not divorced in the mind. 

(3) The verbal expression of what is common to a class 
appears to give a separate existence to the generality. The 
description, 'A line is length without breadth,' may be called 
an abstract idea of a line. Still, the meaning of the words 
* length' and 'breadth' is inconceivable, without the aid of 
individual concrete . things possessing length and breadth. 
Length is a name for one or more things agreeing in the pro- 
perty so called ; and the property is nothing but this agree- 
ment. When, therefore, an abstraction is defined by a verbal 
reference to other abstractions, the effect is to transfer the 
attention from one class of concrete things to some other 
classes of concrete things. ' A triangle is a figure bounded by 
three right lines,' directs us to contemplate the concretes 
implied under 'boundary,' under 'three,' and under 'right 
line.' 

After arriving at the verbal definition, we are able to reason 
of a class by reference to a single individual. When told 
that 'aline is length without breadth,' we are cautioned against 
viewing the line before us, in a diagram, under any other view 
but its length. A certain width is necessary to our seeing or 
conceiving the line, but we take warning from the definition 
not to affirm or include any proposition as to width. We con- 
tract a habitual precaution on this head, which enables us to 
work correctly upon one specimen, instead of needing the 
check of various differing specimens. Thus, while nothing 
can dispense with the presence of a concrete example, it is 
possible to work without a plurality of examples ; and what 
enables us to do so is the restraint imposed by the verbal de- 
finition. 

5. The only generality possessing separate existence is 
the Name ; and the proper force of a general name is to 
signify agreement among the concrete things denoted 
by it. 

When a certain number of things affects the mind with 
similarity in diflPerence, it is of importance to make the fact 
known ; which is done by the use of a common name. The 
things called fires have a community of effect, and the appli- 
cation of one word to all, shows that to be the case ; and 
shows nothing else. Every name that we find applied to a 



180 ABSTRACTION — THE ABSTRACT IDEA. 

plurality of objects is a declaration of agreement (in a given 
manner) among such objects; man, horse, river, just. To 
tbis view of the nature of general, or abstract ideas, is given 
tbe designation ' Nominalism.' 

6. General Ideas, separated from particulars, bav9 no 
counterpart Eeality (as implied in Realism), and no Men- 
tal existence (as affirmed in Conceptualism). 

Because we have a name 'round/ or 'circle,' signifying 
that certain things impress us alike, although also differing, it 
does not follow that there exists in nature a thing, of pure 
roundness, with no other property conjoined ; a circle, of no 
material, no colour, and no size. All nature's circles are circles 
in the concrete, each one embodied along with other material 
attributes ; a certain colour and size being inseparable from 
the form. This is the denial of Realism. 

[N'either can we have even a mental Conception of any pro- 
perty abstracted from all others ; we cannot conceive a circle, 
except of some cplour and some size ; we cannot conceive jus- 
tice, except by thinking of just actions. 

7. There is a strong tendency in the mind to ascribe 
separate existence to abstractions ; the motive resides in 
the Feelings, and is favoured by the operation of Language. 

The ascribing of separate existence to abstractions is seen 
more particularly in early philosophy ; as in the Indeterminate 
of Anaximander, the Numbers of Pythagoras, the One and the 
Absolute of the Eleates, the Nous or Mind of Anaxagoras — 
offered as the primal source, or first cause of all existing 
things. To account in some way or other for all that we see 
around us, has been an intense craving of mankind ; and one 
mode of satisfying it is to construct fictitious agencies, such as 
those above named. 

The facility that language affords to Realism depends on 
the circumstance that we are apt to expect every word to have 
a thing corresponding. What is true of concrete names, as 
Sun, Earth, England, we suppose to be true of general names, 
as space, heat, attraction ; we naturally regard these as some- 
thing more than mere comparisons of particulars. 

Time is a pure abstraction; it has no existence except in 
concrete duration. Things enduring are what we know ; until 
we have become aware of a certain number of these, we have 
no notion of time. Yet, owing to the sublime effect produced 
by the things that have great duration, we contract an asso- 



LANGUAGE FACILITATES REALISM. 181 

ciation with, the name for this property in general, and speak 
of Time as if it were a real and separate existence. 

The existence of a supposed External and Independent 
material world, is the crowning instance of an abstraction con- 
verted into a separate entitj^. (For an account of the contro- 
versy of Nominalism and Realism, see Appendix A.) 



CHAPTEE VL 

THE OEIGIISr OF KNOWLEDGE. 
EXPERIENCE AND INTUITION. 

1. The question has been raised, with reference to a 
certain small and select portion of our knowledge, whether 
it is derived from Experience like the larger portion, or 
whether it is Intuitive. 

While the great mass of our knowledge is obviously at- 
tained in the course of our experience of the world, it is con- 
tended by some philosophers that certain elements exist in the 
mind at birth ; as, for example, our ideas of Space, Time, and 
Cause ; the Axioms of Mathematics ; the distinction of right 
and wrong ; the ideas of God and Immortality. 

These inborn elements have received many other names ; 
as Innate ideas, Instinctive truths, notions and truths a priori, 
First Principles, Common Sense, primary Beliefs, Transcen- 
dental notions and truths, truths of the Reason. 

2. It is considered that the assigning of a purely 
mental origin to certain ideas, both accounts for what is 
otherwise inexplicable, and confers an Authority, higher 
than experience, upon some important principles, specula- 
tive and practical. 

There are certain peculiarities, it is maintained, belonging 
to such notions and principles as those above specified, that 
mere experience and acquisition cannot account lor. 

Again, the ante-natal origin of an idea is believed to give 
it a character of certainty, authority, dignity, such as cannot 
be af&rmed of anything obtained in the course of experience. 



182 THE ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE, 

Thus Kant, in remarking on the notion of Cause, said the 
question respecting it was, — 'Whether this notion were ex- 
cogitated by the mind a priori, and thus possessed an intrinsic 
truth, independent of all experience, and consequently a more 
extensive ajJj^licahiliii/, one not limited merely to objects of 
actual experience.' A superior and more commanding sweep 
is thus accorded to the notions originating in the mind. 

3. In more explicit terms, the characters ascribed to 
the Intuitive or Innate principles, whereby they transcend, 
or rise above, other principles, are mainly these two — 
Necessity and Univei^sality. 

The necessary, or what must be true, is opposed to the 
contingent, which may or may not be true. That the whole is 
greater than its part, and that every effect must have a cause, 
are said to be necessary ; that unsupported bodies fall to the 
ground is contingent, the fact might have been otherwise. 

Universality follows necessity ; what must be true cannot 
but be universally true. 

4. The first objection to the doctrine of Innate ideas 
and principles, is that it presumes on the finality of some 
one Analysis of the Mind. 

Nothing is to be held innate that can be shown to arise 
from experience and education. Language is not innate ; we 
can account for any one's power of speech by instruction, fol- 
lowing upon the articulate capacity, the sense of hearing, and 
the admitted powers of the intellect. 

To affirm that the notions of Space and Time are intuitive, 
is to affirm that by no possibility shall mental philosophers 
ever be able to account for them by the operation of our per- 
ceptive faculties. Nov/, although the analysis of the mind at 
any one time should not be able to explain the rise of these 
notions, we are not, for that reason, justified in saying that 
they are never to be explained. 

Although, strictly speaking, we are not entitled to call 
any notion ultimate, and underivable, any more than chemists 
are entitled to call a substance absolutely simple, yet there are 
certain appearances indicating that a fact, whether material 
or mental, is either simple or the reverse. The so-called 
elementary bodies, — oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and the metals, 
are probably simple, because none of the powerful decompos- 
ing agencies now possessed have been able to decompose 
til em. A newly-discovered saline body or crystal would be 



INTUITION SUPPOSES ONE ANALYSIS FINAL. 183 

considered compound, because such bodies are susceptible of 
decomposition. 

So in the Mind, it is not probable that we shall ever be 
able to analyze the sensation of Colour ; it is an efiect arising 
on the presentation of what is called a visible body, and is not 
resolvable into any other effect. In like manner, the feeling 
of Resistance, or Expended Energy, has all the appearance of 
being a simple fact or experience of the mind. It enters into 
many mental states, but we cannot show that any other men- 
tal state enters into it. On the other hand, there are good 
reasons for thinking that our notion or idea of a pebble is a 
compound, being made up of resistance, touch, visible form, 
and visible colour ; we can identify the presence of all these 
elements in the notion, which is the only proof we have of its 
being a complex and not a simple notion. 

The question then is, may not our notion of Space, or Ex- 
tension, be derived from the Muscular feelings or Sensations, 
co-operating with the Intellectual powers ? Can we identify 
all that there is in the notion with these elements of sensible 
experience, intellectually combined ? Is the analysis of Space 
given in previous chapters (pp. 26, 48, 63), sufficient to ac- 
count for it ? If not, what element is there that cannot be 
identified with Muscular feeling, and Sensation, under the 
intellectual properties of Difference, Agreement and Reten- 
tiveness ? It is now allowed, (by Hamilton, for example,) 
that we have an empirical knowledge of extension ; why may 
not this be the whole ? 

In the final appeal, the sufficiency of an analysis rests upon 
each person's feelings of identity, or difference, in comparing 
the thing to be analyzed with the elements affirmed to enter 
into it. If any man is conscious that his notion of Space con- 
tains nothing but what is supphed by muscular and sensible 
experience, operated on by the intellect, he has all the evi- 
dence that the case admits of. 

Even granting that our present analysis of Space is unable 
to resolve it into elements of post-natal experience, we are 
not, therefore, to hold the matter closed for ever. The power 
of analysis is progressive ; and the most that any one is en- 
titled to say, is, that, as yet, Space has not Leen resolved — 
that it contains an element that is unique, and not identified 
with any mode of consciousness gained in our experience of 
the world. 

The notion of Time, in the same way, may be held as 
either resolvable into muscular and sensible impressions; 



184 . THE OllIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

associated and generalized, or as not so resolvable at present. 
But no one is entitled to affirm it as absolutely simple and 
underived, or that Analysis has reached the last term, in re- 
spect of this notion. 

In point of fact, the analysis of the feeling of Time seems 
the easiest of all. Every muscular feeling, sensation, and 
emotion, is different according to the degree of its endurance ; 
we discriminate the greater from the less persistence of any 
state of consciousness. This discriminated persistence is the 
attribute of Time. We usually measure Time by some mode 
of our muscular sensibility, as motion ; but we may measure 
it upon any kind of consciousness ; we being differently 
affected by the unequal continuance of every mental condition. 

5. The existence of Innate ideas has an Improbability 
corresponding to the amount of our dependence on experi- 
ence for our knowledge. 

The unquestionable rule being that our knowledge is 
gained through Movement and Sense (Intellectual functions 
co-operating), the burden lies with the advocate of innate 
truth to make good any exceptions to the rule. 

The difficulties in the way of such an attempt are formi- 
dable. We cannot interrogate the new-born child ; we have no 
means of testing its knowledge, until a large store of ideas 
lias been acquired. It is different wich the powers of action ; 
we can see that a child is able to suck at birth, and to perfom 
various movements and gesticulations. But there is no evi- 
dence that it possesses any kind of knowledge or ideas. 

6. On the theory of Nominalism, innate general ideas 
would involve innate particulars. 

If an abstraction, or generality, be nothing but a host of 
particulars identified and compared, the abstraction is nothing 
without the particulars. Space has meaning in reference to 
extended things, and to nothing besides. If we are born with 
a pre-existing idea of space, we must have pre-existing ideas 
of concrete extended objects, which we compare and classify 
as extended. But the same objects would also be susceptible 
of classifications according to other properties, as colour, so 
that we should also possess innate ideas of colour. 

7. The characteristic of Necessity, rightly understood, 
does not point to an Innate o'rigin. 

A proper necessary truth is one where the subject implies 



NECESSARY TRUTH NOT INNATE. 185 

the predicate ; it is a truth of Implication. What is called 
the Law of Identity — whatever is, is, A is A — is given as an 
example of a necessary truth. That a thing is what it is, we 
may pronounce necessary in the highest sense ; we cannot 
without self-contradiction, say otherwise. Now, there is no 
apparent reason why our ordinary faculties would fail to teach 
us this necessity, or why there must be innate forms provided 
expressly for the purpose. The difficulty would be to avoid 
recognizing such a necessity. Were it admissible that a thing 
could both be and not be, our faculties would be stultified and 
rendered nugatory. That we should abide by a declaration 
once made, is indispensable to all understanding between man 
and man. The law of necessity, in this sense, is not a law of 
things, but an unavoidable accompaniment of the use of 
speech. To deny it, is intellectual suicide. 

Another so-called necessary truth is the Law of Contradic- 
tion. A thing cannot both be and not be. This is merely the 
law of Identity in another form. For example, if it be 
affirmed, ' This room is hot ; ' the inference is necessary that it is 
not cold. Such an inference, however, according to the prin- 
ciple of Relativity, is no new fact ; it is the same fact stated 
from the other side ; hot and not- cold express the same thing. 
There is no march of information in these necessary truths ; 
the necessity lies in a thing being exactly what it is ; in an 
affirmation being still true, although perhaps diffigrently ex- 
pressed, or looked at from another side. 

Again, when we say ' all men are mortal,* the inference is 
necessary, that one man, in particular, or some men, are mor- 
tal. The necessity lies in the fact that the inference merely 
repeats the proposition, only not to the same extent. 'All 
men' is an abbreviation for, this man, the other, and the 
other ; and when we apply the proposition, ' all men are mor- 
tal' to the case of this man, we do nothing but abide by our 
affirmation. When we have maintained a principle in one 
shape, we are understood to be ready to maintain it in any 
other equivalent shape — to be consistent with ourselves. 
This we should be equally inclined to, on any supposition as 
as to the oris^in of our ideas. 

These necessary truths have, from their very nature, the 
highest possible 'Universality.' That * whatever is, is;' that 
* if all matter gravitate, some matter gravitates,' — are true at 
all times and places, on the same grounds as they are true 
now. The obligation of consistency cannot be dispensed with 
at any conceivable place, or any conceivable time. If nature 



186 THE OKIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

had omitted to supply the supposed innate tendency to recog- 
nize such Universality, we should still recognize it, from a 
feeling of the utter helplessness that its denial would plunge 
us into. 

There is, besides, in the active tendency of the mind, a 
strong disposition to extend to all places and times whatever 
is true in the present (see Belief). So powerful, indeed, is 
this impulse, that it constantly leads us too far, and needs to 
be checked and reduced within limits. We are induced to 
generalize to the utmost whatever we find in our limited 
experience ; we believe that our present feelings will always 
continue. Instead of requiring an intuitive preparation to 
brmg us up to the mark of Universality, we are constantly 
urged, through the operation of our active tendencies, to 
over-universality ; and it would have been well for us to have 
been endowed with some innate caution in this respect. 

8. The concessions made by the supporters of Innate 
Principles are almost fatal to the evidence of these prin- 
ciples, and to their value as authority. 

It is allowed that experience is the occasion of our being 
conscious of our intuitive knowledge. We have no idea of 
Space, till we encounter extended things, nor of time, till we 
experience continuing or successive things. The innate element 
is always found in the embrace of an element of sense-per- 
ception. This circumstance casts the greatest uncertainty upon 
the whole speculation, It is scarcely possible to say how much 
is due to experience, and how much to intuition. May not 
the exactness, the purity, the certainty of an innate principle 
be impaired by its alliance with the inferior element of actual 
sensation ? 

9. In the present position of the controversy in ques- 
tion, the chief alleged Innate (speculative) Principles are 
the Axioms of Mathematics, and the Law of Cansation. 

The axioms of Mathematics have been variously stated. 
There are good reasons for regarding as axioms, in the proper 
sense of the word, these two. * Things equal to the same 
thing are equal to one another ; ' and ' The sums of equals 
are equal.' It may be maintained that on these two axioms, 
together with the definitions, the whole fabric of mathematics 
can be raised. 

Neither of these two axioms is necessary, in the sense of 
Implication. When we affirm that 'things equal to the 



AXIOMS OF MATHEMATICS. 187 

same thing are equal to one another/ we do not affirm an 
identical proposition ; the subject is not involved in the pre- 
dicate. Equality is properly defined as immediate coincidence 
(things that, being applied to one another, coincide, are equal). 
Now, the axiom affirms mediate coincidence, or coincidence 
through some third thing; and however obvious we may 
suppose the truth affirmed, it is not an identical proposition ; 
it connects together two facts, differing not in language only, 
but in nature ; it declares mediate coincidence to be as good 
as immediate coincidence ; that where we cannot bring two 
things together for direct comparison, we may presume them 
to be equal, if they can be indirectly compared with some 
third thing. There would be no self-contradiction in denying 
this axiom. 

The same line of observation is applicable to tlie second 
axiom; 'the sums of equals are equal.' It is not an identical 
proposition ; it joins together two distinct properties — equality 
(by coincidence) and equality by the medium of the sum of 
equalities. 

Neither of these axioms is intuitive, any more than neces- 
sary. They botli flow from our actual experience ; they are 
abundantly confirmed by repeated trials ; and would, to all 
appearance, be as strongly believed as they are, by virtue of 
the extent and variety of the confirmations of them. Such is 
the view taken by those that impugn innate principles, and con- 
tend for the origin, in experience, of all our ideas whatsoever. 

Some of the axioms of Euclid are necessary, in the strict 
sense. ' Things that, being applied to one another, coincide, 
are equal,' is not an axiom, bu-t a definition — namely, the 
definition of equality. ' The whole is greater than its part,' is 
a corollary from a definition, the definition of whole and 
part; from the very nature of whole and part, the whole 
must be greater than any one part. This is a necessary, 
because an identical, proposition. ^ That two straight lines 
cannot enclose a space,' (Kant's stock instance) is, in reality, 
a corollary from the definition of straight lines, and is therefore 
necessary indeed, but is an implicated or identical statement. 
To contradict it, is to contradict the very definition. 

That every Effect not only has, but must have, a Cause, is 
alleged to be a truth at once necessary and intuitive. Ex- 
perience, it is said, cannot show that every change has a 
cause, still less that it must have a cause. 

As the word * effect' is a correlative term, implying a 
cause, we must substitute the word ' event,' in order to 



188 THE OniGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

represent fhe question fairly; ''Every event must be pre- 
ceded by some other event/ would then be the statement of 
the law. This assertion is obviously not necessary in the 
sense of Implication ; it is not an identical proposition ; the 
opposite is not self -contradictory. It has all the appearance 
of an induction from facts. 

The upholders of the innate origin of Causation refer to 
another criterion of the necessary and the intuitive — the in- 
conceivahility of the ojpposUe, They contend that we cannot 
conceive an absolute beginning; we are obliged to think of 
every event as growing ont of some previous event. Conse- 
quently, they say, there cannot be a creation out of nothing. 

As an assertion of fact, this is easily met by denial. There 
is nothing to prevent us from conceiving an isolated event. 
Any difficulty that we might have, in conceiving something to 
arise out of nothing, is due to our experience being all the 
other way. The more we are instructed in the facts of the 
world, the more are we made aware that every event is 
chained to some other event ; this begets in us a habit of 
conceiving events as so enchained ; if it were not for this habit, 
there would be no serious obstacle to our conceiving the 
opposite state of things. (For the historical view of the 
opinions on the subject of this chapter, see Appendix B.^ 



CIIAPTEK VII. 
OF EXTEENAL peeception. 

1. The relations of the Mind to the External, Material, 
or Extended World, give rise to two distinct, although 
connected questions — the Theory of Vision, and the Per- 
ception of the External and Material World. 

Logically, as well as historically, these questions are con- 
nected; in both of them, Berkeley endeavoured to subvert 
what had been the received opinions up to his time. 

THEORY OF VISION. 

2. Berkeley's Theory of Vision professes to account 
for our perceiving Distance by sight. One explanation 



PllOPER SENSIBILITY OF THE EYE. 189 

refers the perception to Instinct, the other to Experience, 
or education. 

The instinctive theory prevailed before Berkeley; the 
other view was introduced by him, and has been generally, 
though not universally, received by scientific men. 

We find ourselves able, as far back as we can remember, 
to perceive by sight the comparative distances of objects, and 
to assign their real magnitudes ; whence it woald seem that 
the perception comes to us by nature, and not by education. 
In opposition to such an inference, Berkeley held that Distance 
is not seen, but felt by touch, and that we learn to connect 
our tactile experiences with the accompanying visible signs. 
In the same way we judge, by the eye, of the real magnitudes 
of things, after we have both seen and handled them. 

Berkeley's arguments were greatly enfeebled by the im- 
perfect views prevailing in his time, regarding our active or 
muscular sensibility. We shall, in the following summary, 
present the full force of the arguments as they stand now. 

3. The native sensibility of the eye includes (1) Light 
and Colour, and their various shades, (2) Visible Figure, 
and Visible (or retinal) Magnitude. 

The optical sensibility of the eye is for light and colour. 
The muscular sensibility is for visible forms and visible mag- 
nitudes, and their degrees. It is interesting to note that the 
judgment of visible size is the most delicate and accurate of 
all the judgments of the mind. Every accurate standard of 
comparison is in the last resort an appeal to visible magnitude, 
as the balance, the thermometer, &c. 

Visible magnitude corresponds to the extent of the image 
upon the retina, and hence is called, by Wheatstone, Retinal 
magnitude. 

4. The visible appearances or signs connected v^^ith 
variation of distance from the eye are these : (1) The feel- 
ing of muscular tension in the interior of the eye-ball. 
(2) The feeling of convergence or divergence of the two 
eyes. (3) The varying dissimilarity of the pictures pre- 
sented to the two eyes. (4) The greater clearness of near 
objects, and the haziness of distant. (5) The variation of 
retinal magnitude. 

(1) It has been seen (Sight) that to adjust the eye to a 
near object (a few inches), there is a muscular strain in the 
eye- ball. 



190 THEOKY OF VISION. 

(2) Another sign of nearness is fhe convergence of tlie 
two eyes, which is relaxed more and more as the object is re- 
moved ; at great distances the eyes being parallel. 

(3) For near distances, the pictures seen by the two eyes 
are dissimilar ; as the distance increases, they are less so, and 
at great distances they are exactly similar. Such identity is, 
therefore, a sign of great distance. 

(4) Incidental to distance, when very great, is a certain 
haziness, which is so far a constant fact, that painters make 
use of it in their perspective. 

(5) When an object retreats from the eye, its visible or 
retinal magnitude steadily diminishes, and we are very sensi- 
tive to this diminution. If one human figure is seen at six 
feet distance, and another at twelve, nearly behind the first ; 
the one has four times the retinal magnitude of the other; 
and this disparity strikes the mind more forcibly, perhaps, 
than all the other signs put together. 

5. The meaning, or import, of Distance, is something 
beyond the experience of the eye. 

The meaning of distance may be illustrated thus. If a 
ball is held before the eyes, first at six inches, and then at 
twelve, the optical changes will be as above described. But 
conjoined with visible changes is a definite movement of the 
arm, of which we are conscious. This introduces a new sen- 
sibility into the case ; and when we say that the ball has been 
removed to the greater distance, one (and the more important) 
meaning of the fact is, that the hand and arm would have to 
be moved to carry it to its new position, or to touch it there. 

Such is an example of the meaning of distance for near 
objects. Another measure is introduced for distant objects. 
To compare six feet with twelve feet, we must move the 
whole body in locomotion, and estimate, from our muscular 
sensibiliby, the difierence between one locomotive exercise 
and another. To come up to one object, we move two paces, 
to another four, and so on. To change one visible appear- 
ance, or retinal magnitude, to another, we put forth a defiuite 
locomotion, which is not merely our measure or estimate 
practically of the interval between the two appearances, but 
the sole meaning or import of distaDce. If any one denies 
this, let him say what meaning is left, if all that is signified 
by locomotion of the whole body, or any part of it, be wholly 
withdrawn. 

But if Distance has no meaning apart from the move- 



OPPORTUNITIES FOR ASSOCIATING DISTANCE. 191 

menis of other organs than the eye, the question then is, has 
nature gifted us at birth with the power of learning through 
one sense the experience of another sense ? Do we smell 
sounds, or hear touches, or taste colours ? Such conjunctions 
may not be impossible, but they are unusual ; and the 
burden of proof lies upon the affirmer. 

6. The experience of early infancy and childhood is 
incessantly forming the Associations between the visible 
signs of distance and the movements that constitute the 
meaning of distance (together with real magnitude). 

The infant in the nurse^s arms is perpetually experiencing 
the visible changes consequent on its being carried about ; and 
as soon as it is aware of the fact of its being moved or carried 
(an unavoidable muscular consciousness), it connects this 
experience with the startling changes of visible magnitude in 
the things before its eyes. The visible appearance of the 
wall of a room is doubled, tripled, or quadrupled, while the 
child is carried from one end of the room to another. There 
would be no possibility of avoiding the association of the 
two facts. After a time, the momentary visible magnitude of 
the familiar wall would be connected with the amount of 
locomotion necessary to increase the magnitude to its maxipaum, 
or reduce it to its minimum ; which would be a perception of 
distance begun. When the child attains to its own powers of 
locomotion, experiments are greatly increased in number and 
in variety ; in a single day, the child might cross a room 
several scores of times, and every time the optical changes 
would be felt in connexion with its movements. A few 
weeks or months of this experience could not but engrain a 
vast number of associations of visible chano^e with deQ:rees of 
locomotion. The child would at the same time be handling 
things, taking their measures with the arms ; walking round 
tables and chairs, estimating their real magnitudes by experi- 
mental muscular exertions, and connecting these real magni- 
tudes with optical adjustments and changes. There are thus 
abundant opportunities of attaining the required connexions 
of real distances and real sizes with visible signs ; every 
instant of the active life of the child is furnishing additional 
confirmations ; and the final result is likely to be a firm 
and indissoluble alliance between visible signs and the multi- 
farious locomotive and other experience accompanying them. 

7. According to the experiments of Wheatstone, the 
order of dependence among our visual perceptions is as 



192 THEORY OF VISION. 

follows : — The Inclination of the Axes of the eyes, in com- 
pany with a given Eetinal picture, suggests the magnitude 
flrd ; and from the true magnitude thus known and the 
retinal magnitude, we infer the distance. 

It was the prevalent opinion, that the feeHng of the degree 
of convergence of the axes at once suggests distance ; and that 
the distance thus suggested, taken along with the visible or 
retinal magnitude, gives the true magnitude. Wheatstone, on 
the contrary, concludes from his experiments that the first 
suggestion made is real magnitude (as experienced by touch 
and locomotion), and that, by combining this with the visible 
magnitude, the suggestion of distance follows. A block of 
stone is first judged to be, in size, a foot in the side ; we then 
know from its visible or retinal size, whether the distance be 
ten feet, or fifty ; there being, as already remarked, no more 
delicate means of discrimination than by differences of retinal 
size. 

These experiments are important, as showing that Distance 
is not even the first inference, but the last, and implicates with 
it a prior inference of true Magnitude ; all which increases the 
difficulty of supposing the perception of distance to be in- 
stinctive, 

8. The perception of Distance is farther illustrated by 
the Stereoscope. 

This great invention of Wheatstone's has given an impetus 
to the study of what is termed Binocular . vision, or the con- 
currence of the two eyes in the single picture. The con- 
nexion of solid effect^ — in other words, the perception of dis- 
tance^ — with double vision, is rendered very striking. It is 
shown, that the dissimilarity of the two pictures is a sign of 
distance, bound up in inseparable association with the fact. 

To account for our seeing an object single with two eyes, 
the following considerations are ofiered. 

(1) The picture of the object is received by one eye; the 
other merely extending its compass, and giving the dissimi- 
larity of aspect that is a sign of the distance. It is a mistake 
in fact, to suppose that each eye sees a full and entire picture, 
independent of the other ; one eye takes the lead and receives 
the picture, the other supplying the additions. Supposing the 
right eye to be the leader, if we shut that eye, the picture 
will be observed to shift its ground to the right ; in fact, an 
entirely new picture is now formed by the left eye alone, — a 



IN VISION THE PAST UNITES WITH THE PRESENT. 193 

picture tliat is never allowed to be formed when both eyes are 
open. It is as in Touch, where we may employ both hands, 
but we attend chiefly to one, using the other as an extension 
of the contact. 

(2) Equally pertinent is the consideration that, in vision, 
what the mind conceives is, not the optical effect actually 
presented at the moment, but a compound or accumulated effect, 
the result of all our past experience of vision in connexion 
with the various movements that enable us to estimate real 
size and distance. As in reading, our mental picture is not 
confined to a visible word, but involves the feeling of articula- 
tion and the melody on the ear, together with the suggested 
meanings, — so, in vision, the mind supplies far more than the 
sense receives. In looking at an extended prospect, we see 
distinctly only the part in the line of the eye ; all the rest is 
to the vision indistinct and vague. Nevertheless, the mind 
supplies from memory a clear picture of the other parts. 
Also, in looking down a vista, the adjustment of the eyes per- 
mits only one portion to be clearly seen, the rest being neces- 
sarily confused ; but the mind easily gives the correct picture 
throughout, so that the indistinctness demonstrably attaching 
to the optical image does not cloud the mental perception. 

9. It is admitted by the opponents of Berkeley, that 
the instinctive perception must be aided by certain acquire- 
ments or associations. 

The concession is made that, * although the eye possessed 
the most perfect power of perceiving distance, it could not 
IJOssibly convey an idea of the amount of walking necessary to 
jpass over it,' This, as Mr. J. S. Mill remarks, is to surrender 
the whole question. The author of the remark parries the 
conclusion, by saying that there is no more in it than the 
difference between hearing musical tones and the power of 
distinguishing them accurately. But the perception of any 
quality must involve the perception of its degree ; we could 
not be said to perceive weight, unless we could distinguish 
between a greater and a less ; very nice shades of difference 
might not be felt without education ; but not to feel any 
amount of difference is not to feel at all. The loose remark 
is made, ' we first roughly estimate the difference by the eye — 
this we correct by measurement.' But a rough estimate is 
still an estimate of more or less, a sense of difference. 

The question still returns. What is the meaning or import 
of Distance ? One meaning of vital importance practically, 



194 THEOKY OF VISION. 

is the greater or less locomotion or other movement required 
to traverse it. Subtract that meaning, which is said by all 
not to be instinctive, and what meaning remains ? Until the 
two contending parties agree upon this, it is vain to argue the 
question. Nevertheless, we shall now present a summary of 
the chief arguments on the side of instinctive perception. 

10. I. — In perceiving distance, we are not conscious of 
tactual feelings or locomotive reminiscences ; what we see is 
a visible quality, and nothing more. 

If distance is merely the suggestion of touch, &c., we ought to 
be conscious of a tactile state, a state of locomotive, or other mus- 
cular, effort. It is denied that we have any such consciousness. 
We never, it is said, see resistance or hardness, which are the 
real tactile qualities. 

The supporters of Berkeley meet this allegation by saying, 
that we are conscious of associated qualities in being conscious of 
distance. Even as to the more strictly tactile properties of resist- 
ance and hardness, we are distinctly conscious of these in looking 
at a stone wall ; we do not see them in the eye, but their visible 
signs so strongly suggest them, that they are inseparable from the 
act of vision. 

Mr. Mill, rem.arking on his own experience, says, that in judg- 
ing the distance of an object, the idea suggested to his mind ' is 
commonly that of the length of time, or the quantity of motion, 
that would be requisite for reaching to the object if near, or 
walking up to it if at a distance.* 

It thus appears that opposite allegations can be made 'as to the 
mterpretation of individual consciousness, which renders this 
argument indecisive on either side ; as in all assertions referring 
to the subjective world, each one must judge for themselves. 

11. II. — The early experience or education of children is 
inadequate to produce the requisite strength of association. 

It is affirmed that the opportunities are wanting for uniting 
the visual signs with the tactual and other effects ; that the con- 
stant association requisite does not take place ; that the visible 
experience is sufficiently frequent, but the tactual and locomotive 
experience rare. * We see a house at the distance of forty yards, 
a mountain at ten miles ; but how often do we estimate the dis- 
tance by any other sense ?' For every separate adjustment of the 
eye, correspondmg to all grades of distance, we ought to have 
made innumerable experiments of touch or locomotion. 

But to all this it is replied, first, that the infant is making the 
experimental connexions as often as it is moved from place to 
place, no matter how. And, secondly, it being admitted that we 
originally see distance only in the ' rough,' and without discrimi- 
nation of degree, and have to learn by experience all the separate 
stages, it seems no great additional demand on our education to 



OBJECTIONS TO BERKELEY'S THEORY. 195 

acquire the rough estimate as well, implying as it does so much 
less than the numerous associations that distinguish degrees. 

It is farther urged against the doctrine of acquirement, that 
the associated things should be able to reproduce one another re- 
ciprocally. Tactual and locomotive perceptions ought to suggest 
their visual signs as efficiently as the inverse operation ; that is, 
in putting forth our hand in the dark to touch a thing, there 
ought to flash upon us the visible remembrance of its distance ; 
which, it is alleged, is not the case. So, walking a few steps in 
the dark should give us the visual sensations corresponding to the 
interval passed over. 

It may be replied, that we have in both cases a visual estimate 
of distance, just as accurate as our estimate of movement or loco- 
motion from visible signs. When we walk six paces in the dark, 
retreating from a wall, we can then, and do, think of the visual 
distance of the wall at six yards ; every pace that we take sug- 
gests the retreating figure of the wall ; and if our estimate is not 
perfectly accurate, neither is our estimate of real distance, judged 
by its signs, always accurate. 

12. III. — Observations made upon persons born blind, and 
after a lapse of years made to see, are affirmed to be in favour 
of the instinctive origin of the perceptions. 

The first and best known of these cases, a youth couched by 
Cheselden {Fhil. Trans. 1728), has, until lately, been considered 
as confirmatory of Berkeley's doctrine. But the recent opponents 
of Berkeley have endeavoured to give it a different turn, as well 
as to explain the other cases in their view. It is admitted, how- 
ever, that the observers were not sufficiently aware of the points 
to be noted in order to settle this question. Two patients are 
quoted by Mr. Bailey, who could distinguish by the unassisted eye 
whether an object was brought nearer or carried farther from 
them. But in neither case, were the circumstances of the experi- 
ment such as to prove the fact. 

Cheselden's patient said that ' all objects seemed to touch his 
eyes,' which is not compatible with his seeing things at a distance, 
and some things farther off than others. A similar remark was 
made by other patients, and although laborious attempts are 
made to explain away the effect of the observation (see Abbot's 
* Sight and Touch,' chap, x.), the necessity of such attempts is fatal 
to the decisiveness of such cases as proofs of intuitive perception. 

13. lY. — The case of the lower animals is adduced as pre- 
senting an instinct such as is contended for, which would at 
least show that the fact is one within the compass of nature. 

The power of many animals to direct their movements, almost 
immediately after birth, seems established by a large mass of 
concurrent observations. For example, ' the moment the chicken 
has broken the shell, it will dart at and catch a spider. Sir 
Joseph Banks said he had seen a chicken catch at a fly whilst the 



196 THEORY OF VISION. 

shell stuck in its tail.' Many similar facts have been related over 
and over again by veracious witnesses. Such powers obviously 
imply an intuitive measure of distance, and a farther instinctive 
power of directing* the movements in exact accordance therewith. 
On these facts, it is open to the adherents of Berkeley's theory to 
make the following comments. 

(1) There does not exist a body of careful and adequate obser- 
vations upon the early movements of animals. It is not enough 
that even a competent observer makes an occasional observation 
of this nature; it is essential that a course of many hundred 
observations should be made on each separate species, varying.the 
circumstances, in every possible way, so as to ascertain the usual 
order of proceeding in the species generally, and all the condi- 
tions and limitations of the aptitudes alleged. We know enough 
to pronounce such facts as the above, respecting the chick, to be 
extreme and exceptional instances ; usually a certain time (two or 
three days) elapses ere the chick can peck at seeds of com ; and 
the nature of its operations during that interval, as well as the 
character of the first attempts, should receive the most careful 
scrutiny by different observers. There is satisfactory evidence 
that these animals do possess, at a remarkably early period, a 
power of precise adjustment of their moving organs to external 
objects ; but it is not proved that this power is complete at the 
instant of birth in any single species. 

(2) As regards the bearing upon the Theory of Vision in man, 
these observations have the fatal weakness of proving too much. 
They prove that animals have not only the power of seeing dis- 
tance, but the power of appreciating its exact amount, and the 
still farther power of graduating their own movements in exact 
correspondence with the distance measured. They include both the 
gift that we are alleged to have by nature, and two other apti- 
tudes that in us are acquired. This enormous disparity reduces 
the force of the analo.i^y to almost nothing. A natural endow- 
ment that goes the length of a precise muscular adjustment 
adapted to each varying distance, so far transcends the utmost 
that can be affirmed of our primitive stock of visual perceptions, 
as to amount to a new and distinct attribute, presupposing a 
totally different organization. 

14. Y. — The observations on infants are held as favouring 
the instinctive perception of distance. 

It is not alleged that infants at birth exhibit any symptoms of 
this knowledge, like the animals just quoted, but that they show 
it before they have developed the powers of touch and locomotion 
requisite for actual distances. The infant is said to have the 
power of bringing its hand accurately to its mouth about the 
eleventh week, while the j)Ower of touching and handling has 
made very little progress at the end of six months. Yet, by this 
time, the child knows the difference between a friend and a 
stranger, and throws itself out in the direction of the one, and 



DOCTRINE OF HEREDITARY EXPERIENCE. 197 

turns away from the other; it also knows when it is moved 
towards the object it likes, and makes no attempt to seize a thing 
until it is brought quite close. Of course, locomotion has not yet 
begun. 

We have given by anticipation the only answer to these facts, sup- 
posing them accurately stated (which is doubtful). The earliest as- 
sociations of visible appearances with actual trials of distance and 
real magnitude are not made by the hand, or by the child's own 
locomotion, but by its movements as carried from place to place ; 
and until some one can show that it can have no adequate conscious- 
ness of these movements, at the same time that it is conscious 
of the changes of the retinal magnitude of the things about 
it, the Berkleian theory is not affected by the facts in question. 

15. It has been suggested, as a third alternative in this 
dispute, that there may be a liereditary or transmitted ex- 
perience of the connexion between the visible signs and the 
locomotive measure of distance. 

This view belongs to what is called the Development hypo- 
thesis^. If there be such a thing as the transmission of acquired 
powers to posterity, it may operate in the present instance. 
Facts are adduced (by Darwin, Spencer, and others) to show that 
this transmission is possible, although the utmost extent of it 
would appear to be but small for one or a few generations. Still, 
it is argued that, if there be any experience likely to impress 
itself on the organization permanently, it would be an experience 
so incessant as the connexion of the visible signs with the loco- 
motive estimate of distance. 

It may be remarked, with reference to this hypothesis, that, 
whatever be the case with certain of the lower animals, the heredi- 
tary transmission has not operated to confer the instinct upon 
man (unless the opposition to Berkeley be successful, which is 
not admitted). Hereditary experience may have predisposed 
the nervous system to fall in more rapidly into the connexions 
required. This is what no Berkeleian is in a position to deny, 
while it might ease the difficulty suggested by the great strength 
and maturity of the acquisitions at the earliest period of our 
recollections. 

PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

1. All Perception or Knowledge implies mind. 

To perceive is an act of mind ; whatever we may sup- 
pose the thing perceived to be, we cannot abstract it from 
the percipient mind. To perceive a tree is a mental act ; 
the tree is known as perceived, and not in any other way. 
There is no such thing known as a tree wholly detached from 
perception ; and we can speak only of what we know. 



]98 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

2. The Perception of Matter points to a fundamental 
distinction in our experience. We are in one condition, 
or attitude, of mind when surveying a tree or a mountain, 
and in a totally different condition or attitude when 
luxuriating in warmth, or when suffering from toothache. 

The difference here indicated is the greatest contrast 
within our experience. It is expressed by Matter and Mind (in 
a narrow sense), External and Internal, Object and Subject. 

3. The distinction between the attitude of material 
perception and the subjective consciousness has been com- 
monly stated, by supposing a material world, in the first 
instance, detached from perception, and, afterwards, coming 
into perception, by operating upon the mind. This view 
involves a contradiction. 

The prevailing doctrine is that a tree is something in itself 
apa;rt from all perception ; that, by its luminous emanations, it 
impresses our mind and is then perceived ; the perception 
being an effect, and the unperceived tree the cause. Bat the 
tree is known only through perception ; what it may be 
anterior to, or independent of, perception, we cannot tell ; we 
can think of it as perceived, but not as unperceived. There 
is a manifest contradiction in the supposition ; we are required 
at the same moment to perceive the thing and not to perceive 
it. We know the touch of iron, but we cannot know the 
touch apart from the touch. 

4. Assuming the Perception of Matter to be a fact 
that cannot be disengaged from the mind, we may analyze 
the distinction between it and the modes of subjective 
consciousness, into three main particulars. 

I. — The perception of Matter, or the Object conscious- 
ness, is connected with the putting forth of Muscular 
Energy, as opposed to Passive Feeling. 

The fundamental properties of the material or object world 
are Eorce or Hesistance, and Extension, — the Mechanical and 
the Mathematical properties. These have sometimes been 
called the primary qualities of matter. Tlie modes of Exten- 
sion are called, by Hamilton, primary qualities, and the modes 
of Resistance or Force, sec'iiudo-p'iniary, 

Now, it has been formerly seen (muscular feelings) that, 
in experiencing resistance, and in perceiving extension, our 
moving energies are called into play. The exertion of our 



PERCEPTION OF MATTER CONNECTED WITH ENERGY. 199 

own muscular power is the fact constituting tlie property 
called resistance. Of matter as independent of our feeling 
of resistance, we can have no conception ; the rising up of 
this feeling within us amounts to everything that we mean by 
resisting matter. We are not at liberty to say, without in- 
curring contradiction, that our feeling of expended energy is 
one thing, and a resisting material world another and a differ- 
ent thing ; that other and different thing is by us wholly un- 
thinkable. 

On the other hand, in purely passive feeling, as in those 
of our sensations that do not call forth our muscular energies, 
we are not perceiving matter, we are in si state of subject con- 
sciousness. The feeling of warmth, as in the bath, is an 
example. If we deliver ourselves wholly to the pleasure of 
the warmth, we are in a truly subject attitude, we are in 
noways cognizant of a material world. All our senses may 
yield similar experiences, if we resign ourselves to their purely 
sensible or passive side ; if we are absorbed with a relish 
without moving the masticating organs, or with an odour, 
without snuflB.ng it, or moving up to it. In pure soft touch, 
we approach to the subject attitude ; but there are few exer- 
cises of touch entirely separated from muscular effect. On 
the same conditions, sounds might be a purely subject 
experience. Lastly, it is just possible, although difiicult, 
to make light a subject experience ; mere formless radiance 
would be an approach to it; the recognition of form or 
boundary introduces an object property, embodied in ocular 
movements. 

The qualities of matter affecting our senses on their purely 
passive side — their special or characteristic sensibility — are 
called the secondary qualities of matter — Taste, Odour, Touch 
proper (soft touch, &c.), Sound, and Colour. 

The distinction of Primary and Secondary qualities is made 
chiefly with reference to Perception. The primary, on the com- 
mon theory, are those of pure and independent matter, matter 
per se ; the, secondary are tinged or coloured by the percipient 
mind. 

We have thus, in putting forth energy, a mode of con- 
sciousness belonging to the object side ; and in passive feel- 
ing, a mode of consciousness belonging to the subject side. 

5. II. — Our object experience farther consists of the 
uniform connexion of Definite Feelings with Definite 
Energies. 



200 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

The effect that we call the interior of a room is, in the 
final analysis, a regular series of feelings of sense, related to 
definite muscular energies. A movement, one pace forward, 
makes a distinct and definite change in the ocular impressions ; 
a step backwards exactly restores the previous impression. 
A movement to one side gives rise to another definite change, 
and so on. The coincidences are perfectly uniform in their 
occurrence. Again, in moving down a street, we undergo a 
series of sensible feelings, in accordance with our movements ; 
we reverse the movements, and encounter the feelings in the 
reverse order. We repeat the experiment, with the same 
results. All our so-called sensations are in this way related 
to movements. Our sensations of light vary with our move- 
ments, and (allowance being made for other known changes) 
always in the same way with the same amount of movement. 
We open the eye and light is felt-; we close it, and light 
ceases. This gives to light its object; character. Sound, by 
itself, would be purely subjective ; but a sound steadily in- 
creasing with one movement, and steadily decreasing with 
another, is treated as objective. 

On the other hand, what, in opposition to sensations, we 
call, the flow of ideas, — the truly mental or subjective life — 
has no connexion with our movements. We may remain still 
and think of the different views of a room, of a street, of a pros- 
pect, in any order. This is a total contrast to the other ex- 
perience ; mankind are justified in using very decided language 
to express so great a difference ; they are not, however, 
justified in using language to affirm that, in the object percep- 
tion, there are unperceived existences giving the cue to our 
actual perceptions. 

Thus, then, what we call Sensation, Actuality, Objectivity, 
is an unlimited series of associations of definite movements 
with definite feelings ; the Idea, Ideality, Subjectivity, is a 
flow of feelings without dependence on muscular or active 
energy. In this property also, we see that it is still our ener- 
getic or active side that constitutes the basis of the object 
experience, the object consciousness. 

6. Our own body is a part of our Object experience. 

It is in our own body that Object and Subject come to- 
gether in that intimate alliance known as the union of mind 
and body. Still, the body is object to the mind, and is viewed 
in the same manner as other parts of the objective aggregate. 

When we speak of an external world, the comparison is 



^ THE OBJECT COMMON TO ALL. 201 

strict only in comparing onr body with the things that sur- 
round it. External and Internal are not strictly appli- 
cable to express the totality of the object as compared with 
the totality of the subject. The terms 'alliance,' 'union/ 
' association,' are less unsuitable ; they do not commit us to 
the impropriety of specifically locating the Unextended. 

7. III. — In regard to the Object properties, all minds 
are affected alike : in regard to the Subject properties, 
there is no constant agreement. 

By communicating with others, we find that, in regard to 
the feelings that definitely vary with definite energies, what 
happens to one happens to all. Two persons walking down 
the same street, have the same changes of sensation, at each 
step. Whoever performs the definite series of movements 
called ascending a mountain, will be conscious of the same 
sensitive changes, the same series of ocular efiects. Other 
persons as well as we experience light in the act of opening 
the eyes, in definite circumstances. 

On the other hand, although on the same mountain top the 
optical experience of all beholders is the same, they may difl'er 
in many other feelings, — in the sense of fatigue, in the sense 
of hunger, in the aesthetic enjoyment. They will also differ 
in the flow and succession of their ideas ; no two will have the 
same train of thoughts. These are subjective elements of the 
mind. For although they also are affected by movements, and 
are under a strict law of succession of their own, yet there is 
no exact uniformity as to the time, degree, and manner of 
their showing themselves. Now, the object world is limited 
to points of strict and rigorous community, where the effect 
is the same to all minds. 

This rigorous uniformity belongs only to the so-called 
primary qualities. Extension and Resistance ; visible form 
and visible magnitade, tangible form and tangible magnitude, 
and degrees of force or resistance, are the points where beings 
are constituted alike. They are not constituted strictly alike 
as regards Colour (witness Colour-blindness), Sound, Touch 
proper, Smell, Taste, still less Organic Sensation. They are 
constituted, however, very nearly alike in the higher senses ; 
there is little difference in regard to colour ; hence the popular 
notion of the independent external world is a coloured world, 
but it ought to be only an Extended, Shaped, and Resistiug 
world. Colour is a secondary quality, varied by the varieties 
of the subject ; and should therefore be withdrawn from rigorous 



202 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

object existence, as not being strictly common to all. Still 
we join it to the object properties, by reason of its being 
definitely varied with definite movements in each person, 
although, it may not be precisely the same experience in all 
persons. 

8. When, in order to distinguish what is common to 
all from what is special to each, we ascribe separate and 
independent existence to the common element, the Object, 
we not only forget that the object qualities are still modes 
of conscious experience, but are guilty besides of con- 
verting an abstraction into reality — the error of Eealism. 

In the perception of Extension, Shape, Eesistance, and to 
a certain extent Colour, we all agree ; and it is important to 
express the agreement. But it does not follow, that the 
agreeing properties subsist apart, and in isolation ; any more 
than that roundness exists as a separate entity, or detached 
from, all round things. We are conscious of object qualities 
only in their union with subject qualities ; we may, by the 
exercise called Abstraction, think of the object qualities by 
themselves, but we cannot thereby confer upon them an 
existence aloof from all subject qualities. 

THEORIES OF THE MATERIAL AVORLD. 

Berkeley. The so-called Ideal Theory of Berkeley is given 
in his work entitled 'The Principles of Human Knowledge,' and 
is farther defended and elucidated in ' Three Dialogues between 
Hylas and Philonous.' 

The Introduction to the ' Principles of Human Knowledge ' is 
occupied with an onslaught on the doctrine of Abstract Ideas. 
The author felt that the common theory of the material world is 
a rem.nant of Eealism, and incompatible with thorough-going 
Nominalism. 

The objects of human knowledge, he goes on to say, are ideas 
of one or other of these three classes : — (1) Ideas actually imprinted 
on the senses, (2) ideas arrived at by attending to the passions and 
operations of the mind — as pleasure, pain, sweetness, love, con- 
science, &c., and (3) ideas formed by memory or by imagination 
reviving and combining the two other classes. 

It is necessary to remark on this peculiar use of the word 
' idea,' to express what we commonly call ' sensations' and 
' things,' that Berkeley docs not thereby mean to assimilate the 
perception of a tree to the idea that we form of a tree when re- 
membered ; he only intends to say that sensation, or perception, 
is a merited fact or product, a phase or aspect of mind, and 
cannot have any existence apart from mind. He has, however, 



BERKELEY. 203 

taken a word, hitherto employed only in the subject sphere, and 
generalized it to express both the object and the subject, marking 
the difference by specific designations, as if we should say, object 
ideas (sensations, things, objects), and subject ideas (feelings, pas- 
sions, thoughts, &c.). 

Sight, he continues, gives ideas of colour ; touch gives hard- 
ness and softness ; smelling furnishes odours. Moreover, there 
may be concurrences of these ; a certain colour, taste, smell, figure, 
may go together, and have one name, apple. 

Besides these three kinds of ideas, countless in their detail, 
there is a something that knows or perceives them, and exercises 
the various functions called, willing, imagining, remembering. 
This is mind^ spirit, soul, myself ; a something different from the 
ideas that constitute knowledge. 

ISTow, with regard to ideas of the second and third classes, — 
ideas of our thoughts and passions, and ideas of memory and 
imagination — it is allowed by everybody that these exist only in the 
mind. 

To Berkeley, it is equally evident that ideas of the jirst class — 
sensations of the senses — cannot exist otherwise than in a mind 
perceiving them. The table I write on exists ; that is, I see or 
feel it ; if I were out of my study, I should say it existed, mean- 
ing if I return I shall perceive it ; or if any other persons are now 
there, they will perceive it. In short, Avith regard to outward 
things generally, they exist as perceived ; the esse is percipi. 

To suppose otherwise (the vulgar opinion), is a contradiction. 
Sensible objects are the things perceived by sense ; but whatever 
we perceive is our own ideas or sensations ; it is self- contradictory 
to say that anything exists unperceived. It is only a nice ab- 
straction that enables us to suppose things unperceived; the 
things we see and feel are so many sensations, notions, ideas, im- 
pressions of sense, and it is no more possible to divide them from 
the act of perception, than to divide a thing from itself. The 
choir of heaven, the furniture of the earth, all the things that 
compose the mighty frame of the world, have no existence with- 
out a mind ; they subsist either in the minds of created spirits, or, 
failing these, in the miiid of some eternal spirit. There is no 
other substance but spirit, that which perceives ; it is a perceiving 
substance that alone furnishes the substratum of colour, figure, 
and other sensible qualities. 

He next supposes some one to allege, that although ideas are 
in the mind, yet something like them, something that they are 
copies of, may exist in an unthinking substance. The reply is, an 
idea is like only to an idea. Either the supposed originals are 
perceived, and then they are only ideas ; or they are not perceived, 
in which case, colour is declared to resemble something invisible. 

The distinction between Primary and Secondary Qualities is 
of no avail. Extension, Figure, and Motion are still ideas of the 
mind ; neither they nor their archetypes can exist in an unperceiv- 
ing substance. It being admitted that the secondary qualities 



204 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

exist in tlie mind alone, and yet are inseparably united with the 
primary qualities, (extension is always coloured), it follows that 
these primary qualities can have no separate existence. Again, 
the properties called great and small, sloiu and swift, are entirely 
relative ; they change with the position of the perceiving or^jans. 
Therefore the absolute, and independent extension, must neither 
be great nor small, which would amount to nothing. So the 
qualities Numher and Unity are creatures of the mind. In short, 
whatever goes to prove that tastes and colours exist only in the 
mind, proves the same as to Extension, Figure, and Motion. 

He then examines the received opinion that extension is a 
mode of the substratum matter, and finds the expression devoid of 
meaning. 

Granting the possibility of solid, figured, movable substances, 
existing without the mind, how can we ever know this ? Is it 
not possible that we might be affected with all the ideas we have 
now, though no bodies exist without that resemble them ? More- 
over, the assumed existence of such bodies is no help in explaining 
the rise of our ideas, seeing that we are unable to comprehend how 
body can act on spirit. In short, if there were external bodies, it 
is impossible that we should know it ; and if there were not, we 
should still have the same reason for believing it. 

He points out (although with insufiicient Psychology) the 
difference between ideas of sensation, and ideas of reflection or 
memory : the ideas of sense do not depend on our will (we open 
our eyes and cannot resist the consequences). Moreover, these 
ideas of sense are more strong, lively, and distinct, than the 
others ; they have a steadiness, order, and coherence, unlike the 
ideas influenced by our own will ; the set rules of their coherence 
constitute the laws of nature, the knowledge of which is our 
practical foresight. 

To the objection that the reality of things is abolished or re- 
moved by his theory, he merely repeats his main position in varied 
terms. There are spiritual substances or minds having the power 
of exciting ideas in themselves at pleasure ; but ideas so arising 
are faint, weak, and unsteady. There is another class of ideas, 
those perceived by sense ; which are impressed according to cer- 
tain rules or laws of nature; and to them, the idea of reality is 
attached in a more peculiar meaning. He, therefore, removes 
no reality as understood by the vulgar, but only a philosophic 
fiction. 

It may seem very harsh, he further remarks, to say that we 
eat and drink and are clothed by ideas. But so is any deviation 
from familiar language. Underneath the language is a question 
of fact. To use the terms ' object of sense,' ' thing,' is to assume 
the error he is combating. 

He then notices other objections ; sdch as the supposed per- 
petual annihilation and creation involved in the theory ; the no- 
tion, that to regard extension as a purely mental fact is to make 
the mind extended ; the consent of mankind to the view he is 



HUME. 205 

opposing ; tlie superfluity of tlie curious organization of plants 
and animals on his system, &c. His answers bring out nothing 
new. He repeats his attacks on abstract ideas, in the leading in- 
stances of Time, Space, and Motion ; and combats the doctrine of 
mathematicians as to the Infinite Divisibility of lines. 

He is strenuous in maintaining the existence of spirit apart 
from ideas ; spirit is the support and substratum of ideas, and 
cannot be itself an idea. The supposition that spirit can be 
known after the manner of an idea, or sensation, is a root of 
scepticism. He considers the Deity the immediate cause of all 
our sensations, and that the theory of the world is simplified by 
reducing everything to his direct agency ; while atheism is de- 
prived of its greatest support — the independent existence of 
matter. 

All the ingenuity of a century and half, has failed to see a way 
out of the contradiction exposed by Berkeley ; although he has 
not always guarded his own positions. It is to be regretted that 
he could not find some other name than idea, for expressing our 
object consciousness. In spite of all his attempts to distinguish 
ideas of sensation from the commonly understood ideas, he la- 
boured under a heavy disadvantage in running counter to the 
associations of familiar language. He laid himself open to refu- 
tation by something more severe than a * grin,* or a nickname — 
Idealist. 

Hume. Hume is noted for having embraced the views of 
Berkele}', with the exception of that relating to a separate soul or 
spirit. He thus reduced all existence to perceptions and ideas. 

Hume's philosophy is given at greatest length in the * Treatise 
on Human Nature.' The application of his philosophical prin- 
ciples to Material Perception, is found in Part IV. His subsequent 
work, entitled, ' An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding,' 
is prefaced by a note, desiring that this work, and not the Treatise 
on Human Natur(3, may be taken as representing his philosophical 
sentiments and principles. On referring to the ' Enquiry,' we 
find that the handling of the doctrine of perception is compressed 
into one very short chapter (Sect, xii.), entitled, 'Of the Aca- 
demical or Sceptical Philosophy.' It does not appear, however, 
that the author's views on this doctrine underwent any change ; 
or that any injustice would be done to him by referring to the 
more expanded treatment of Perception in the ' Human Nature.' 
His fundamental views of the mind are the same in both treatises. 
His resolution of all our Intellectual elements into Impressions 
and Ideas, differing only in vividness or intensity ; his thorough- 
going Nominalism; his repudiation of any nexus in Cause and 
Effect beyond mere experience of their conjunction; his explana- 
tion of Belief by the greater vividness of the object; his reference 
of the belief in nature's uniformity to Custom ; his refusal to 
admit anything that cannot be referred to a primary impression 
on the mind through the senses, — are cardinal doctrines of his 
philosophy from first to last. 

11 



206 PEKCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WOELD. 

In the later work, his remarks on Perception are in the fol- 
lowing strain : — Men are prompted by a strong instinct of their 
iiature to suppose the very images, presented by their senses, to 
he the external objects; not to represent them. On the other 
hand, philosophy so-called teaches that nothing can be present to 
the mind but an image or perception, that the senses are only the 
inlets, and do not constitute immediate intercourse between the 
mind and external objects. Thus philosophy has obviously de- 
parted from the dictates of nature, and has been deprived of that 
support, while exposing itself to the cavils of the sceptic, who 
asks, how it is that the perceptions of the mind must needs be 
caused by external objects (different, though resembling), and 
not from some energy of the mind itself, or through some un- 
known spirit or other cause ? Can there be anything more inex- 
plicable than that body should operate upon mind, the two being 
so different, and even so contrary in their nature ? It is a ques- 
tion of fad, whether the perceptions of the senses be produced by 
external objects resembling them. How shall this question be 
determined ? By experience surely ; but in such a matter experi- 
ence must be silent. The mind has nothing present to it but the 
perceptions, and cannot reach any experience of their connexion 
with objects. 

He then remarks on the distinction between the secondary and 
primary qualities, with a view of showing that, as regards the 
independent existence of their objects, the two classes are on the 
same level. 

If we turn to the Treatise on Human Nature, we find the 
subject of Sense Perception handled with great fulness of detail 
(Part IV. Sect. 2). Hume argues that, by the senses, we cannot 
know either contmued or distinct existence. He then enquires how 
we came by the belief in the continued existence of the objects of 
the senses, and ascribes it to the coherence and constancy of our im- 
pressions respecting them. He observes that the mind once set 
agoing in a particular track, has a tendency to go on, even when 
objects fail it ; and, through this tendency, we transmute inter- 
rupted existence into continued existence. He accounts, on his 
general theory of belief (following vividness of impression) for 
our believing in this imagined continuity. Continued existence, 
when once recognized, easily conducts us to distinct or independent 
existence ; both being equally grounded on imagination, and not 
on reality. 

In Sect, v., he* treats of the Immateriality of the Soul, in 
which he represents the question, * Whether our perceptions 
inhere in a material or in an immaterial substance ? ' as one 
wholly devoid of meaning. We have no perfect idea of anything 
but a perception. A substance is entirely different from a per- 
ception. We have therefore no idea of a substance. ' The doc- 
trine of the immateriality, simplicity, and indivisibility of a 
thinking substance is a true atheism, and will serve to justify all 
those sentiments for which Spinoza is so universally infamous.' 



REID. 207 

In the chapter (Sect, vi.) on Personal Identity, he denies the 
existence of seZ/ in the abstract; there is nothing to give us the 
impression of a perennial and invariable self. * When I enter,' 
he says, ' most intimately into what I call myself, I always 
stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, 
light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure.' Mind is nothing 
but a bundle of conceptions, in a perpetual flux iand movement. 
He goes on to explain by what tendencies of the mind the fiction 
of a pure, absolute self is set up, and what is the real nature of 
what we call ' personal identity.' 

Such is a brief indication of the celebrated scepticism of 
Hume. It is, however, to be remarked of him, in contrast to 
Berkeley, that he often expresses himself as if his theory was 
at variance with the experience of mankind. As he was a man 
fond of literary effects, as well as of speculation, we do not 
always know when he is earnest ; but he speaks as if the belief 
that fire warms and water refreshes, was the revolt of nature 
against his scepticism. It is no wonder that others have sup- 
posed him to deny both the existence of matter and the existence 
of mind, although, in point of fact, he denies neither, but only 
a certain theoretic mode of looking at and expressing the pheno- 
mena admitted by all. The outcry against him and Berkeley proves 
that a rose under another name does not always smell as sweet. 

Eeid. Eeid reclaimed against Berkeley and Hume, on the 
ground of what he called Common Sense. * To what purpose,' 
he says, 'is it for philosophy to decide against common sense in 
this or in any other matter ? The belief of a material world is 
older, and of more authority, than any principles of philosophy.' 
* That we have clear and distinct conceptions of extension, figure, 
and motion, and other attributes of body, which are neither sensa- 
tions, nor like any sensation, is a fact of which we may be as cer- 
tain as that we have sensations.' In general, it may be said, that 
Eeid declaims, rather than reasons on the question; and Hamilton, 
who equally repudiates the ideal theory, and appeals to conscious- 
ness in favour of the prevailing opinion, finds Eeid * often at fault, 
often confused, and sometimes even contradictory.' In his edition 
of Eeid (Note C, p. 820), Hamilton draws up two classes of state- 
ments on the part of Eeid, pointing to two opposing doctrines, 
one called 'the doctrine of mediate ^perception,' which Hamilton 
disavows, and the other called ^immediate perception,'' which Ha- 
milton adopts. 

The doctrine of mediate conception, or representative con- 
ception, is the most glaring form of the doctrine of the separate 
existence of matter; its self- contradictory character is exposed 
by no one more vigorously than by Hamilton. He finds Eeid 
slipping into it, in saying that the primary qualities. Extension, 
&c., are suggested to us through the secondary : the secondary 
are the signs, on occasion of which we are made to ' conceive ' the 
primary. But, says Hamilton, if the primary qualities are sug- 
gested conceptions, our knowledge of the external world is wholly 



208 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

subjective or ideal. Equally unguarded is tlie expression that, 
* il sensation be produced, the perception follows^ even when there 
is no object.' So, to localize sensation (a pain in the toe, for 
instance) in the brain is conformable to mediate or representative 
perception. Eeid's use of the terms * notion ' and * conception ' 
likewise favours the same view. Also, in calling imagination of 
the past an immediate knowledge, "Reid is on dangerous ground : 
such immediate knowledge, applied to perception, is really a 
mediate knowledge. Again, the doctrine of Reid and Stewart, 
that perception of distant objects is possible, if sifted, leads to 
representationism. Once more, Eeid's calling perception an iii- 
ference is of the same tendency. Finally, he ought not to separate, 
as he does, our helief of an external world from our cognition 
of it. 

On the other hand, Hamilton adduces statements conformable 
to Real or Immediate presentation. These chiefly consist in repeat- 
ing the common opinion of mankind, that whatever is perceived 
exists. Mr. J. S. Mill, in opposition to Hamilton, maintains that 
Reid throughout adhered to the doctrine of Representation, or 
mediate perception, and quotes numerous passages, where he 
iterates the view that the sensations are merely signs, and that 
the objects themselves are the things signified. What he did not 
maintain was, that the sign resembled the original; which is a 
crude form of representative perception. 

Stewart followed Reid so closely on the subject of Percep- 
tion, that a separate account of his opinions is unnecessary. 
Brown is noted for the virulence of his attack upon Reid's claims 
to have vindicated Common Sense against Idealism. The attack 
has been reviewed by Hamilton, who in his turn is reviewed by 
Mr. J. S. Mill. Mr. Mill's reading of Brown is that he is substan- 
tially at one with Reid. ' He (Brown) thought that certain sen- 
sations, irresistibly, and by a law of our nature, suggest, without 
any process of reasoning, and without the intervention of any 
tertium quid, the notion of something external, and an invincible 
belief in its real existence. Brown differed from Reid (and also 
from Hamilton) in denying an intuitive perception of the Primary 
Qualities of bodies. 

Hamiltoi!^. Hamilton has distinguished himself both as the 
historian and critic of the Theories of Perception, and as the pro- 
pounder of a theory of his own, different alike from Berkeley and 
from Reid. 

He has endeavoured to give an exhaustive classification of all 
the possible theories. [See Edition of Reid, Note C, and 
Lectures.] 

As his scheme is a theoretical rather than a historical one, it 
comprehends doctrines that have probably never been held. The 
first ,s2:reat division is into Presentation and Representation ; or 
into those that consider what is presented to the mind as the 
whole fact, and those that consider tliat there is some other fact 
not presented to the mind. The first class — the Presentationists — • 



HAMILTON. 209 

is divided into the Natural Eealists or Natural Dualists, who 
accept the common sense view that the object of perception is some- 
thing material, extended, and external [Hamilton's own opinion], 
and the Idealists, who consider that nothing exists beyond ideas 
of the mind. He gives various refined subdivisions of this class, 
which must of course take in Berkeley and Hume. Hume's ex- 
treme doctrine, he calls (in the Lectures) Nihilism, and expressively 
describes it as * a consciousness of various bundles of baseless ap- 
pearances.' The second great class — the Eepresentationists — has 
many supposed varieties ; but the main example of it is designated 
by the phrase * Cosmothetic Idealism' ; meaning that an External 
World is supposed apart from our mental perception, as the incon- 
ceivable and incomprehensible cause of that perception. The 
mental fact or perception is thus not ultimate, but vicarious, and 
intermediate, — the means of suggesting or ifetroducing something 
else. This view Hamilton, in common with Berkeley, Hume, and 
Terrier, holds to be untenable, and absurd. 

His own doctrine — Natural Eealism — ^by which he proposes to 
vindicate the common sense view, and yet avoid the difficulties of 
the Eepresentative scheme, contains the following allegations : — 

1. In the act of sensible perception, I am conscious of two 
things — of myself the perceiving subject, and of an external reality 
in relation with my sense as the object perceived. 

2. I am conscious of knowing each not mediately in something 
else, as represented, but immediately, as existing, 

3. The two are known together, but in mutual contrast ; they 
are one in knowledge, but opposed in existence. 

4. In their mutual relation, each is equally dependent, and 
equally independent. 

5. We are percipient of nothing but what is in proximate con- 
tact, in immediate relation with our organs of sense ; in short, with 
the rays of light on the retina (Eeid, p. 814). From which it follows 
as an inference, that when different persons look at the sun, each 
sees a separate object. 

In the hostile criticisms of Mr. Samuel Bailey, and Mr. Mill, 
this last position has been singled out as the author's greatest con- 
tradiction both of fact and of himself. It may be remarked, how- 
ever, that in his more fundamental positions, there is an insur- 
mountable contradiction. By his hypothesis of immediate percep- 
tion, he has escaped the difficulties of the Representationist, to 
fall into others equally serious. If we are to interpret terms 
according to their meaning, how are we to reconcile immediate 
knowledge, and an external reality ? A reality external to us must 
be removed from us, if by never so little interval ; and it is im- 
possible to understand how the mind can be cognizant of a thing 
detached from itself. Then, how can the two things be equally 
dependent and equally independent. This is admissible as an epigram, 
but must be resolvable by a double sense of the words. In no 
sense can we reconcile independent existence with the dependence 
necessary to knowledge. 



210 PERCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

There is another criticism applicable to these positions. 
Hamilton justly lays it down as the condition of a fact of con- 
sciousness, or fundamental truth, that it must be ultimate and 
simple; in other words, the terms of the fact must refer to ultimate 
elements of our experience. Apply this test to the terms ' exter- 
nal,' 'independent,' and 'reality;' and we shall have to admit 
that these are not simple or ultimate notions, but complex and 
derived. It is inadmissible, therefore, to regard any proposition 
involving them as an ultimate fact of consciousness. 

Ferriee. Terrier's system is occupied with illustrating under 
every imaginable variety of expression, from the rigour of geo- 
metrical forms to the richest colours of poetry, the necessary 
implication of the object and the subject, — the impossibility and 
the self-contradiction of an independent material world. His first 
proposition in the ' Institutes,' is perhaps not the most satisfactory 
in its wording, but viewed by the light of those that follow, its 
meaning becomes clear: — ' Along with whatever our intelKgence 
knows, it must as the ground or condition of its knowledge, have 
some cognizance of self.' This he conceives the most fundamental 
expression of the fact that our knowledge of the world is a mental 
modification ; a something held in the grasp of mind, not some- 
thing totally apart from mind. 

He proceeds, in his second proposition, to say that — ^ The object 
of knowledge, whatever it may be, is always something more 
than is naturally or usually regarded as the object. It always is, 
and must be, the object with the addition of one's self, — object 
jplus subject; thing, or thought, mecum. Self is an integral and 
essential part of every object of cognition' — a various wording 
of the general doctrine. So is Prop. III. ' The objective 
part of the object of knowledge, though distinguishable, is not 
separable in cognition from the subjective part, or the ego ; but 
the objective part and the subjective part do together constitute 
the unit or minimum of knowledge.' Still more pointed in the 
statement, though still the same in substance, is Prop. TV. : — 
' Matter per se, the whole material universe by itself, is of necessity 
absolutely unknowable.' After this, it is little else than tau- 
tology (justifiable in the circumstances) to add in Prop. V. : — ' All 
the qualities of matter % themselves are of necessity absolutely un- 
knowable.' His other propositions still repeat the main idea, but 
with reference to the explication of the various terms of philosophy 
— Universal and Particular, Ego and non-Ego, Sense and Intellect, 
Presentation and Eepresentation, Phenomenon, Substance, Rela- 
tive, Absolute, Contingent. 

The questionable expression in the first and fundamental pro- 
position, is the phrase 'have some cognizance of itself,' which 
suggests a more specific effect of self-consciousness than the author 
really means. His other propositions are content with the more 
general and safe affirmation, that, in knowledge, self must be pre- 
sent as an essential part of the fact. It is rot necessary, and it 
appears scarcely accurate, to say that the mind, while cognizing 



FERKIER.— MANSEL. 211 

an object, must at the same time be cognizing self. Tbe cognition 
of self points to the study of the subject mind, in which there is a 
remission of the object regards. 

Besides his ' Institutes of Metaphysic,' Terrier has several 
dissertations on the same question, now brought together in a 
posthumous publication. The burden of them all is the same; 
his effort still is to expose the self contradiction of the prevailing 
theory. He is almost exclusively occupied in clearing the ground ; 
and when we seek his own positive views we find only a few brief 
indications. 

In the first place, he contends that Perception is a simple, 
ultimate, indivisible fact : * the absolutely elementary in cognition, 
the oie plus ultra of thought. It has no pedigree. It admits of no 
analysis. It is not a relation constituted by the coalescence of an 
objective and a subjective element. It is not a state or modifica- 
tion of the human mind. It is not an effect which can be dis- 
tinguished from its cause. It is positively the FlEST, with no 
forerunner.' (Lectures and Eemains, ii. 411.) 

Secondly, as the ultimate support of our Perception and 
Matter, he follows Berkeley in assigning the direct agency of the 
Deity. He puts the question, ' Is the Perception of matter a 
modification of the human mind, or is it not ?^ and replies, ' that 
in his belief it is not.' He thus repudiates ' subjective idealism, 
and cares not what other idealism he is charged with.' 

Mai^sel. Mr.Mansel maintains (1) that being in itself, or 
substance without attributes, is not only unknowable but contrary 
to the nature of things. (2) That Berkeley's denial of the existence 
of matter (in the sense of the unknown support of qualities) is not 
in any way contrary to common sense. (3) But when Berkeley 
went so far as to assert the non-existence of matter, he went as far 
beyond the evidence as his opponents did in maintaining its 
existence. [Berkeley might, however, deny it on the ground that 
it was a self -contradictory and fictitious entity of the imagination.] 

(4) It' is possible to take an intermediate course, to admit that 
we have no right to assert the existence of any other kind of 
matter than what is presented in consciousness ; but to deny 
Berkeley's other position, that we are conscious only of our own 
ideas. * If, in any mode -of consciousness whatever, an external 
object is directly ^presented as existing in relation to me, that 
object, though composed of sensible qualities only, is given as a 
material substance, existing as a distinct reality, and not merely 
as a mode of my own mind.' This is very much the language of 
Hamilton's ISTatural Eealism ; and, like it, treats the adult con- 
sciousness as expressing ihe natural or primitive consciousness. 

(5) He maintains with Berkeley, and against Hume, that a 
personal self is directly presented in intuition, together with its 
several affections. 

(6) He, moreover, analyzes the fact of external perception, and 
specifies resistance to locomotive energy, as the mode of conscious- 
ness which directly tells us of the existence of an external world. 



212 PERCEPTION OF A MATEPwIAL WORLD. 

He would not admit that this consciousness is the external -world. 
(Metaphysics, pp. 329, 346.) 

Bailey. Mr. Samuel Bailey has devoted a large portion of 
his ' Letters on the Human Mind ' to the problem before us. He 
criticises Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Eeid, Brown, Stewart, Kant, 
and Hamilton. His own view is, that ' the perception of external 
things through the organs of sense is a direct mental fact or phe- 
nomenon of consciousness not susceptible of being resolved into 
anything else.' ' It is vain attempting to trace any mental event 
between the percipient and the thing perceived ; vain trying to 
express the fact more simply or fully than by saying, we perceive 
the object.' In short, perception is a simple, indivisible, ultimate 
experience of the human mind. 

A conclusion to the same effect is enunciated by Ferrier, al- 
though he and Mr. Bailey would probably not accord on anything 
else as regards this problem. 

The absolute simplicity of this experience is as doubtful in 
itself, as it is at variance with the common belief. There are 
experiences of the mind that we pronounce,, with great confidence, 
to be simple (although always reserving the possibility of future 
resolution), as our feeling of muscular energy, our sensation of 
sweetness in taste, our sensation of white light. But these cases 
of unequivocal simplicity are few in number, and difficult to state 
in their absolute purity ; and all of them are, indeed, crusted over 
with a numerous body of associations. But when we turn to the 
fact called perception, we cannot help being struck with the 
appearance, at least, of complexity. There is seemingly a combi- 
nation of a perceiving mind, a mode of activity of that mind, and 
a something to be perceived — nothing less than the whole extended 
universe. To make out this seemingly threefold concurrence to 
be an indivisible fact, would at least demand a justifying expla- 
nation. It is true that most of the attempts to analyze it have 
only brought their authors into contradictions ; and that there 
may be wisdom as well as safety in renouncing the task. Still, 
no one can answer for the whole future of philosophy ; no one 
can affirm that a fact, having so much the appearance of com- 
plexity as this, shall never be made to yield to analysis. 

J. S. Mill. In his ' Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philo- 
sophy,' Mr. Mill, after criticising Hamilton's mode of handling 
Perception, advances what he calls ' The Psychological Theory of 
the Belief in an External World.' 

The theory postulates certain truths, proved by experience, and 
generally admitted, although not adequately felt by the school of 
Hamilton. 

The first truth is that the human mind is capable of Expectation^ 
in other words, after experiencing actual sensations, we can con- 
ceive Possible sensations. 

He next postulates the Laws of Association. After briefly stating 
these laws, and alluding to the power of repetition in making the 
bond of Contiguity more secure, he points out that, in certain 



J. a MILL. 213 

circumstances of unbroken and iterated conjunction, there may 
arise an Inseparable, or Indissoluble, association between two 
things, go that we shall be practically unable to conceive the 
things in separation ; as in the acquired perceptions of sight. 

Setting out from these premises, the theory maintains that 
there are associations naturally, and even necessarily, generated 
by the order of our sensations, and of our reminiscences of sensa- 
tion, such as would give rise to the belief of an external world, 
and make it seem an intuition. 

Mr. Mill asks, ' "What is the meaning of a tiding being external 
to us, and not a part of our thoughts ? ' and replies that there is 
meant something that exists when we are not thinking of it, that 
existed before we had thought of it, and would exist if we were 
annihilated ; and further, that there exist things that have never 
acted on our senses, and things never perceived by any one. Now, 
such a belief is within the compass of the known laws of associa- 
tion. * [ see a piece of white paper on a table. I go into another 
room, and though I have ceased to see the paper, I am persuaded 
that it is still there. I have not now the sensation, but I believe 
that when I place myself in the same circumstances, I shall have 
it again, at any moment.' Thus, together with a small and 
limited portion of actual sensation, there is always a vast compass 
of possible sensation. These possibilities are to us the external 
world ; the present sensations are fugitive, the possible sensations 
are Permanent. To this wide region of Permanent Possibility of 
sensation, a name is given — Substance, Matter, the External 
World; and although the thing thus named is related to, and 
based upon, our actual sensations, yet * from a familiar tendency 
of the mind,' the different name comes to be considered the name 
of a different thing. 

These certified or guaranteed possibilities of sensation, have 
another peculiarity ; they refer to sensations not single, but 
Grouped. A material substance is the rallying point of a great 
and indefinite number and variety of sensations : and when a few 
of these are present, the remaining number are conceived by us 
as Present Possibilities. As this happens in turn to all the sensa- 
tions, the group as a whole presents itself to the mind as Perma- 
nent, in contrast to the temporary and passing individual sensa- 
tions. The present sensation of a piece of money is but one of a 
vast aggregate of possible sensations that we might have in con- 
nexion with it. 

Again, we recognize a fixed Order of our sensations ; an Order 
of succession, giving rise to the idea of Cause and Effect, through 
the fixity of the sequence. But this order is not realized so much 
in actual sensations, as in the groups or possibilities of sensation. 
We find the possibilities to be regular, when the actualities are 
not ; the fire goes out and puts an end to one particular possibility 
of Vv^armth and light. There is a constant set of possible sensa- 
tions forming the background to every actual sensation at any 
moment. 



214 PEKCEPTION OF A MATERIAL WORLD. 

Now, when this point is reached, the Permanent Possibilities 
have assumed such an unlikeness of aspect, and such a difference 
of position to us, from the mere actuahties, that it would be con- 
trary to all our experience of the human mind, if they were not 
conceived to be something intrinsically and generically distinct 
from the present feelings. The sensations cease ; the possibilities 
remain ; they are independent of our will, our presence, and every- 
thing belonging to us. 

Moreover, we find other sentient beings recognizing, in com- 
mon with ourselves, the Permanent Possibilities. They may not 
have the same actual sensations, but they have always the same 
possible sensations. This puts the final seal to our conception of 
the groups of possibilities as the fundamental Beality in Nature. 

The idea of Externality is derived solely from the notion that 
experience gives of the Permanent Possibilities. Our sensations 
we carry with us, and they never exist where we are not ; but, 
when we change our place,- we do not change the Permanent 
Possibilities of ISensation. When we have ceased to feel, they will 
remain to others. 

The distinction of Primary and Secondary Qualities corre- 
sponds to the greater permanence of one class of sensations. The 
sensations of the Primary Qualities — Extension, Weight, &c., are 
constant, and the same at all times to all persons ; those of the 
Secondary qualities are only occasional ; they vary in the same 
person, and are different to different persons. 

As regards Mi:nd, Mr. Mill holds that we have no conception 
of Mind in itself, as distinguished from its conscious manifesta- 
tions. The notion that we form of Mind, as a unity, is still de- 
rived from the attribute of Permanence. It is a Permanent Possi- 
bility of sensation, and also of thoughts, emotions and volitions. 
Its states differ from matter in not occurring in groups ; and still 
farther, in not being shared by other sentient beings. 



BOOX IIL 

THE EMOTIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

FEELING IN GENEEAL. 

1. Of the two great divisions of the Feelings— Sensa- 
tions (with muscular feelings), and Emotions — the second 
has now to be entered upon. As a preparation, it is ex- 
pedient to resume the characters of Feeling in general. 

This survey might have preceded the consideration of the 
lower department of the Feelings ; but, in exposition, there 
is often an advantage gained by deferring the higher gener- 
alities until some of the particulars have been given. 

The Muscular Feelings and Sensations are the primary 
Feelings, those arising out of the immediate operation of ex- 
ternal agents, with the minimum of intellectual processes and 
growths. The Special Emotions are secondary or derived, 
and involve the intellect, 

2. Positively, Feeling comprehends pleasures and 
pains, and states of excitement that are neither. Nega- 
tively, it is opposed to Volition and to Intellect. 

If Feeling were confined to pleasure and pain (as Hamil- 
ton assumes), it would bave all the precision of our experience 
of those two states. But certain modes of consciousness, 
neither pleasurable nor painful, embraced by the word ' ex- 
citement,' are accounted feelings. This leaves a vague and 
uncertain margin in the boundary of the Feelings. 

There are only three ultimate modes of mind — Feeling, 
VoHtion, and Intellect. Yolition is action under Feeling; its 



216 FEELING IN GENERAL. 

differentia, therefore, is active energy for an end, which is a dis- 
tinctive and well-defined property. Intellect has three constitu- 
ents,— discrimination, similarity, retentiveness, — all clearly de- 
finable. The precision attaching to Volition and to Intellect gives 
a precise negative definition to Feeling. Thus, any mental state 
not being Action for an End, and not regarded as Discrimination, 
Agreement, or Eetentiveness, must be viewed as Peeling. 

3. reeling has a two-fold aspect — Physical and 
Mental. 

The Physical aspect involves all the organs recog- 
nized as connected with mental operations — the Brain, 
Muscles, Senses, and Secreting organs. 

The manner of working of these organs, under states 
of feeling, is summed up in two great laws — Eelativity 
and Diffusion. 

The details already given in a former Book (I.) will ren- 
der sufficient a brief statement of these laws. 

4. The principle of Eelativity, in its purely physical 
aspect, means that, in order to Peeling, there must be 
some change in the mode or intensity of the cerebral and 
other processes. 

The proofs in favour of the principle of Eelativity em- 
brace at once its physical and its mental sides. It is scarcely 
possible to separate, in language, the two sides; our most 
familiar names having a reference to both aspects. An im- 
pression suggests a physical as well as a mental phenomenon. 

5. The Law of Diffusion is thus expressed : — ' Accord- 
ing as an impression is accompanied with Peelingj the 
aroused currents diffuse themselves freely over the brain, 
leading to a general agitation of the moving organs, as 
well as affecting the viscera.' 

This law is implied in the details already given as to the 
expression or embodiment of the feelings. Every feeling, in 
proportion to its strength, is accompanied with movements, 
and with changes in the organic functions. If a feeling has 
no such apparent accompaniments, we conclude, either that it 
is weak, or that there is an effort of voluntary (and, it may 
be, habitual) suppression. 

The physical groundwork of the great distinction of 
Pleasure and Pain, is fully explained in Book I., chap. IV. 
(p. 75). 



PLEAS UEE AND PAIN. 217 



CHARACTEES OF FEELING. 

6. The cliaracters of Feeling are (1) those of Feeling 
proper (Emotional) ; (2) those referring to the Will (Voli- 
tional) ; (3) those bearing upon Thought (Intellectual) ; 
and (4) certain mixed properties, including Forethought, 
Desire, and Belief. 

Emotional Gharaders of Feeling, 

7. Every feeling has its characteristic physical side. 

As regards the Senses, a distinct origin or agency can be 
assigned, as well as a diffused wave of effects, the expression 
or outward embodiment of the state. In the Emotions, the 
physical origin is less definable, there being a supposed coalition 
of sensations with one another and with ideas ; the diffusion 
or expression is, therefore, the principal fact. For the opposite 
states of pleasure and pain, and for the leading emotions, as 
wonder, fear, love, &c., the outward expression is remarkably 
characteristic. 

8. On the mental side, we recognize Quality (Pleasure, 
Pain, Indifference) ; Degree, in the two modes of Intensity 
and Quantity ; and Speciality, 

Quality, This expresses the fundamental distinction of 
Pleasure and Pain, involving the sum of all human interest, 
the ends of all pursuit. Happiness and Misery are the names 
of aggregates, or totals of pleasures and pains. Each one's 
happiness may be defined as the surplus centre when the total* 
of pain is subtracted from the total of pleasure. 

We may have feeling without either pleasure or pain. 
Surprise is a familiar instance. Some surprises give us de- 
light, others cause suffering ; but many do neither. A pain- 
ful emotion may be deprived of its pain, and yet leave us in 
a state of excitement ; and still oftener, a pleasurable emotion 
may cease as delight, but not as feeling. The name excite- 
ment applies to many such states. There may be a certain 
amount of pleasure or of pain, but we are conscious of a still 
greater amount of mere agitation or excitement. 

Degree, The degree or strength of a feeling admits of the 
two distinct modes, named Intensity or acuteness, and Quan- 
tity or mass. The prick of a pin is an acute pain ; the de- 
pression of general fatigue is massive. The physical fact, in 



218 FEELING IN GENERAL. 

acateness, is the intense stimulation of a small surface, in mas- 
sive feeling, the gentler stimulation of a wide surface. 

Acute pleasures and pains stimulate the will, and impress 
the intellecfc, perhaps more strongly than an equivalent stimu- 
lation of the massive kind. Hence their eflB.cacy as motives. 
In punishment, acute pains have the advantage of being much 
dreaded, while they do not endanger health. 

Massive pleasures have the power of soothing morbid 
activity, and of inducing the tender emotion. Massive pains 
are recognized under such names as depression, gloom^ melan- 
choly, despair. Their amount is known by the pleasure that 
they can neutralize. They debilitate and weaken the tone of the 
system, and are not favourable to voluntary exertion, although 
their motive force ought to be great They are powerful to 
induce abstinence from the actions that give rise to them. 

For Sjpeciality^ see examples under the Senses. 

Volitional Characters of Feeling, 

9. The Will is moved by the feelings ; pleasure caus- 
ing pursuit, pain avoidance. Hence the voluntary actions 
are a farther clue to the states of feeling. There is no 
direct volitional stimulus given by neutral excitement. 

As the energy of pursuit or avoidance is in proportion 
to the degree of the pleasure or pain, other things being the 
same, we possess both an additional character of those feel- 
ings, and an important indication of their presence and amount 
in human beings. 

The neutral feelings govern the actions only through the 

Jixed idea, by which a disturbing force is brought to bear on 

the operations of the will, as influenced by pleasure and pain. 

Intellectual Characters of Feeling, 

10. A Feeling viewed with reference to any one of the 
three properties — Discrimination, Agreement, Eetentive- 
ness — assumes an intellectual aspect, and is on the eve 
of becoming a state of intellect proper. Still, as there 
belongs to all feelings a certain degree of ideal persistence 
and recoverability, and as importance attaches to this 
Eetentive property, we may recognize it as their intel- 
lectual attribute. 

Feelings have a different value according as, on the one 
hand, they pass away and are forgotten ; or as, on the other, 
they are easily recovered, at after times, by mental instigation 



FOKETHOUGHT AND DESIKE. 219 

solely. The violent shocks of physical pain, as in organic 
sensations, are not easily remembered. The pleasures and 
pains of the higher senses are more retainable ; and the feel- 
ings connected with some of the special emotions, as Tender 
Feeling, Pride, &c., are perhaps still better remembered. 
One of the meanings of refinement as applied to pleasures is 
the being more easily sustained in the ideal state ; in this 
meaning, the intellectual senses impart more refined pleasures 
than Taste or Smell. 

Farther applications of the Retentiveness of Feeling will 
be given under the next head. 

Mixed Characters of Feeling, 

11. The consideration of Feeling, under the intellec- 
tual attribute of Eetentiveness or Ideal permanence, brings 
into view the nature of Forethonglit or Prudence. 

A feeling, in the actual, as Hunger, prompts the will 
according to its strength or degree ; the same feeling, in anti- 
cipation, has power according as the force of the actual cleaves 
to it in the ideal, which depends on the R-etentiveness of the 
mind for past states of the feeling. A feeling, however strong 
in the actual, if feebly remembered, will have no power to 
stimulate efforts of pursuit or avoidance. According as the 
remembrance of a pleasure approachesthevividness of actuality, 
is the energy of the will on its account sustained in absence ; 
the pursuit is thus steady, although the fruition is only occa- 
sional. 

12. The state of Desire grows out of the retentiveness 
of the mind for pleasure and pain. 

Desire is a mixed property. . A pleasure is present to the 
mind as an idea ; the idea, however falls short of the original ; 
the consciousness of this inferiority is painful, and urges us 
to realize the full actuality. 

13. It is the property of every feeling to Occupy the 
mind — to fix the attention upon the cause or object of the 
feeling, and to exclude other objects. 

This applies alike to pleasures, to pains, and to neutral 
excitement ; with modifications due to the characteristics of 
the three modes of feeling. 

Pleasure, as such, detains the mental regards ; the charm 
of a spectacle or a piece of music is all-engrossing. Heuce 
the pleasing emotions are what most strongly possess the 



220 FEELING IN GENERAL. 

attention and repel all attempts at diversion. If we were to 
look to this case solely, we might suppose that the engross- 
ment was due to the pleasure as such. 

It is, however, a fact that painful feelings have a power 
to detain and engross the mind. This is contrary to the 
working of pain as such, which is to repel whatever causes 
it ; we shut the ears to discord, and turn the eyes away from 
a dizzying sight. But the mere fact of our being excited by 
a painful idea retains it in the mind : we cannot banish it, 
although we will to do so ; the very attempt often increases 
the mental excitement, which is to increase its permanence. 
Thus, a painful excitement, as excitement, or feeling, detains 
the mind, while, as pain, it would seek to remove our atten- 
tion from the cause^ and allay the state of feeling. 

We can now understand the characteristic attribute of 
Neutral feelings. As feeling, they detain and occupy the 
mind, although without the aid of pleasure, or the opposition 
due to pain. The detention is due simply to the strength of 
the excitement as such. A surprise makes us attend to the 
circumstance causing it ; it is a power to prevent us from 
attending to, or thinking of, other things. It controls our 
thoughts for the time that it lasts, directing them towards 
the matters connected with it, and away from all unconnected 
things. 

14. The influence of the feelings on Belief is of a 
mixed nature. 

That influence can be understood from what has just 
been said. Pleasure, as such, influences belief. In the first 
place, it influences the Will in action or pursuit, which carries 
belief with it ; he that is fond of sport is urged to follow it, 
and believes (in opposition to evidence) that no harm or risk 
will attend it. In the next place, pleasure detains the mind 
upon the favourite objects, and excludes all considerations of 
a hostile kind : this is the influence upon the thoughts, even 
when no voluntary action is instigated ; any opinion that is 
agreeable to us gains possession of our thoughts, and is a 
hostile power against the suggestion of views running counter 
to it. 

Pain, as such, - would make us revolt from the objects and 
thouofhts that induce it, and would make us disbelieve in 
those objects and thoughts ; a narrative of great atrocity 
would, through that circumstance, induce to disbelief. But 
through the excitement of mind that it causes, it keeps our 



INFLUENCE IN BELIEF. 221 

attention morbidly fixed on all its circumstances, and by the 
very intensity of the feeling, and in spite of the pain, favours 
our reception and belief of the particulars alleged. 

Neutral Excitement, as snch, and in proportion to its 
strength, by detaining the thoughts, and excluding others, 
is a power on the side of belief. We are to a certain extent 
disposed to believe whatever we are made strongly to conceive 
and feel. 

Thus all the feelings of the mind are influential in swaying 
the beliefs, in thwarting the reason, and in perverting the 
jadgment in matters of truth and falsehood. 

THE INTERPRETATION AND ESTIMATE OF FEELING. 

15. For a knowledge of the feelings of others, we must 
trust to external signs, interpreted by our own conscious- 
ness. The signs are (1) the Expression, (2) the Conduct, 
and (3) the indications of the Course of the Thoughts. 

(1) The outward Expression or Embodiment is a key 
to the nature and the amount of the feeling. 

This arises out of the fact that different feelings express 
themselves differently, and that the stronger the feeling the 
stronger the expression. 

In interpreting the signs of feeling furnished by the 
features, voice, gestures, &c., we have to observe certain pre- 
cautions. In the first place, the same outward expression may 
not correspond in all persons to the same degree of feeling. 
Some temperaments are naturally demonstrative, others are 
wanting in demonstration. One man may be in the practice 
of giving way to the outburst of feeling, another may habitu- 
ally suppress, or moderate, the external display. Even in the 
same person, the vigour of the demonstrations will vary with 
the strength and freshness of the organs ; the young are more 
lively than the old, without being necessarily more affected. 
The practical inference is that we should make allowance for 
temperament (if it can be ascertained) and for the state of 
bodily vigour, before concluding that the most vociferous 
and demonstrative person feels most. 

16. (2) The Conduct pursued is an indication of the 
strength of the feelings, especially as regards pleasure 
and pain. 

This is the law of the Will. According to the degree of a 
pleasure is the urgency to pursue it ; according to the degree 



222 FEELING IN GENERAL. 

of a pain, is the urgency to avoid it. We infer strength of 
taste or liking on the one hand, and strength of disliking on 
the other, from the motive force of each in pursuit and avoid- 
ance. The criterion of conduct is probably more to be trusted 
than the criterion of demonstrativeness ; the combination of 
the two makes a still greater approach to accuracy. 

The exceptions to this test, are the exceptions to the "Will. 
In a very energetic temperament, strength of action does not 
imply strength of feeling ; allowance must be made for the 
vigour of mere spontaneity. Again, the fixed idea may be a 
disturbing element, as in Fear. Lastly, habits of acting once 
formed, cease to represent the power of a present feeling. 

17. (3) The Course of the Thoughts may bear the 
impress of Feeling, and give evidence of its kind and 

o 

We have seen that the feelings detain the mind with their 
objects, and, in proportion to their strength, exclude other 
objects. There is no stronger proof of affection, than the 
constant occupation of the thoughts with a beloved object. 
Yanity is attested in the same unmistakeable way. The in- 
ability to banish a painfal subject is an evidence of the inten- 
sity of the pain, since it overcomes the force of the will, as 
well as confines the intellectual trains to one channel. 

The counteractive to this test is the natural and acquired 
amount of the intellectual forces, which offer a certain strength 
of resistance to the detention of the mind on one class of ideas. 
A man of high intellectual endowments may have strong 
feelings, without being possessed by them to the same degree 
as a feebler intellect. Moreover, it is a part of self-control to 
check the influence of emotion in this, as well as in other 
points where it exercises a mastery. 

] 8. The influence on Belief is a decisive test of the 
strength of a feeling. 

This is the practical outcome of the volitional and intel- 
lectual power combined. When one is carried away by some 
ideal, in despite of facts and evidence, the cause is a strong 
emotion. Such is the influence of love or of antipathy. 

19. The liabilities to error of these several tests, taken 
separately, are to a great degree counteracted when they 
are taken together. 

The demoQstrative temperament exaggerates the expres- 



ESTIMATE OF HAPPINESS AND MISERY. 223 

sion of feeling, but the test of conduct will apply a correction. 
The man of natural energy may seem to have strong likings 
for the things that he pursues, or dislikings for what he 
avoids ; but the course of his thoughts and the strength of 
his beliefs, failing to confirm the inference, will set his char- 
acter in its true light. 

20. We attain an insight into the feelings of others by 
their own description of them. Each man can compare 
his own feelings, and state their relative degree. The 
thing required is a standard, or common measure, between 
one person and another. 

If by means of the various tests already indicated, one 
man can obtain the assurance that, in some point, he feels 
exactly as another does, a common measure is established 
between them ; by reference to which they can make known 
to each other the intensity of their feelings generally. Two 
persons comparing notes, as to expression, conduct, and the 
course of thought, may arrive at the conclusion that in the 
enjoyment of music, they are on a par ; they are then able 
(approximately) to estimate one another's feelings as to all 
other things. 

21. The criteria of feeling may be applied in estimating 
the Happiness or the Misery of our fellow-beings. 

As the estimate of our own happiness or misery is the 
guide to our actions as regards ourselves, the estimate of the 
happiness or misery of our fellows is the basis of our sympa- 
thies, our duties, and our entire conduct towards them. It is 
the immediate foundation of Ethics and of Politics, and the 
final consideration in all knowledge, science, and art. 

It is remarked by Paley, with reference to the amount of 
happiness belonging to different pursuits and modes of life, 
that there is * a presumption in favour of those conditions of 
life in which men appear most cheerful and contented. For 
though the apparent happiness of mankind be not always a 
true measure of their real happiness, it is the best measure we 
have.' For a rough estimate, cheerfulness and contentment 
are good indications ; both, however, are liable to mislead. 
Cheerfulness, in the demonstrative temperament of a French- 
man or an Italian, would not mean the same thing as in an 
Englishman. A still greater uncertainty would belong to the 
other criterion — contentment ; for that state is a proof, not so 
much of happiness, as of training. Many are content with little; 



224 FEELING IN GENERAL. 

others, with a lai^ge fund of happiness, remain dissatisfied ; as 
regards these, therefore, it is not true that discontent is a 
sign of unhappiness. Contentment is a virtue of great im- 
portance to society generally; still, it does not indicate the 
possession of happiness by the subject of it. 

Men's happiness can be measured only by the degree and 
the continuance of their enjoyments, as compared with the 
degree and the continuance of their pains. We have to apply 
the various tests, in the course of a suflGicient observation, 
to determine these points. If we can farther interrogate 
each one as to their own feelings and experience, we shall 
come still closer to the truth. 

An easier mode of approximating to the estimate in ques- 
tion, and one far more accurate than Paley's two tests 
(although not suitable to some of his opinions), is to consider 
each man's share of the usual sources of pleasure, and his 
exemptions from the usual sources of pain. The so-called 
good things of life — Health, Wealth, Friends, Honours, 
Power, opportunities of gratification, a smooth career — so 
unequally possessed by mankind, are a rough measure of hap- 
piness. The estimate may, however, be made more exact by 
close individual observation and the application of the tests. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF FEELING, 

22. An outburst of feeling passes through the stages 
of rise, culmination, and subsidence. 

What we call a state of feeling, or emotion, is a transitory 
outburst from a permanent condition approaching to indifier- 
ence. There is every variety of mode as respects both degree 
and duration. A feeble stimulus can be continued longer 
than a powerful one ; while every intense display must be ren- 
dered short by exhaustion. 

Practically, the moment of culmination of feeling, or pas- 
sion, is the moment of perilous decisions and fatal mistakes. 

23. The emotional states are prone to alternation and 
periodicity. 

The Appetites are marked by regularity of recurrence 
depending on bodily causes. In the pleasurable feelings 
generally, the great alternation is from exercise, on the one 
hand, to remission or repose on the other. This is a prime 
condition of the maintenance of a flow of pleasure. Each 
sensibility is roused in turn, and remitted when the point of 
exhaustion is reached. 



ENDS OF THE ANALYSIS OF THE FEELINGS. 225 

Habit determines a more specific alternation. Sensibilities 
accustomed to be gratified at periodic intervals, acquire the 
force of appetites. 

24. It is proper, in conclusion, to set forth the ends to 
be served by the analysis of the Feelings. 

(1) Here, as elsewhere, there is scope for gratifying en- 
lightened curiosity, by the reference of various and compli- 
cated phenomena to general laws. 

(2) The chief foundations of Ethics are to be found in the 
nature of the human feelings. The question of the Moral 
Sense is a question as to the simple or compound character of 
a feeling. 

(3) The wide department of Esthetics, in like manner, 
supposes a knowledge of the laws and varieties of feeling. 
The Poetical and Literary Art, for example, is amenable to 
improvement, according as the human emotions are more 
exactly studied. The science of Rhetoric, for the time being, 
contains the application of the science of mind in general, 
and of the feelings in particular, to literary composition. 

(4) The theory of Human Happiness reposes immediately 
on the knowledge of the human feelings. This must ever be 
the point of convergence of all the sciences, but it is the 
science of the feelings that gives the line of direction. 

(5) The Interpretation of Human Character, the under- 
standing of men and their motives, will grow with the im- 
proved knowledge of the feelings. Not merely the emotional 
character as such, and the conduct, or voluntary actions, whose 
motives are the feelings, but also much of what seems purely 
intellectual tendencies, may derive elucidation from the pre- 
sent subject. The intellectual forces are, in all men to some 
extent, and in many men to a great extent, swayed by emo- 
tion. In particular, the man of Imagination, in the proper 
sense of the word, the poet or artist, is determined, in his 
productions, as much by feeling as by intellect. 



226 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 



CHAPTEE II. 
THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 

1. The Emotions, as compared with the Sensations, 
are secondary, derived, or compound feelings. 

The Muscular FeeHngs and the Sensations are assumed to 
he the primary or fundamental sensibiUties. The concurrence, 
or combination, of these, in various ways, originates new 
states that acquire a permanent and generic form, wherein the 
simple elements cease to be apparent. 

2. Sensations, and their ideas, may coalesce to form 
new feelings, or emotions. 

First, The simplest case is a plurality of sensations, 
whether of the same sense, or of different senses, in 

MUTUAL HAEMONY or in MUTUAL CONFLICT. 

Harmony is a source of pleasure. Discord of pain. We 
may reasonably assume, as the physical basis of the situation, 
that, in the one case, the nerve currents conspire to a common 
effect, and, in the other case, run into wasting conflict. 

Examples will arise in the subsequent detail. The element 
of Harmony is prominent in the Fine Art Emotions. Con- 
sistency and Inconsisteiicy in truth and falsehood are feelings 
related to the exercise of the Intellect. There is a species of 
Harmony in the workings of Sympathy. 

3. Secondly, There may be, as a consequence of the 
Law of Contiguity, a transfer of feelings to things that 
do not originally excite them, as in the cases already 
illustrated (Contiguity, § 33). 

4. Thirdly, There may be a coalescence of separate 
feelings into one aggregate or whole, as in Property, 
Beauty, Justice, and the Moral Sentiment. 

These examples nearly all illustrate both tra for and 
coalescence. 

5. We cannot, in classifying the emotions, comply 
with the rules of logical division. The nature of the case 
admits of but one method — to proceed from the simpler to 
the more complex. 



GENERA OF EMOTION. 227 

There are several well-marked and important genera of 
emotion, which must find a place under every classificjation, 
although there may be different views as to the best order to 
take them in ; as, for example, Love, Anger, Fear, Wonder ; 
which are all comparatively simple. Others have a high degree 
of complexity ; such, in my opinion, are Beauty and the 
Moral Sentiment. 

The treatment of the various kinds of Emotions must essen- 
tially consist in defining and describing each with precision, 
in assigning the derivation, if possible, and in tracing out the 
most usual forms and varieties. In the description, we shall 
apply the Natural History method, already exemplified in the 
Sensations. 

6. The arrangement is as follows : — - 

I. While the Laio of Relativity is essential to Feeling in 
every form, there are certain Emotional states of a very 
general kind, developed by the mere intensity of the transi- 
tion; such are Novelty, Surprise, and Wonder. 

There are also certain pleasurable feelings that are the 
rebound from very general modes of pain, and which are, 
therefore, more peculiarly connected with Relativity ; as 
Liberty with reference to Restraint, and Power as the 
rebound from Impotence. 

In none of the feelings, can we leave out of view this great 
condition of mental life ; but, in a certain number of instances, 
the emotional state exists only as a transition between opjposites : 
the pleasure supposes a previous pain, and the pain a previous 
pleasure. 

II. The emotion of Terror, or Fear, may receive an early 
consideration. 

• III. The Tender Emotion, or Love, is a well-marked and 
f^r-reaching susceptibility of our nature, and a leading source 
of our pleasures. We may append to it the emotions of 
Admiration, Reverence, and Esteem. 

IV. When we see in ourselves the qualities that excite 
love or admiration in others, we are afiected by a pleasurable 
emotion, named Self-Complacency, Self-gratulation, Self- 
esteem^ This will be shown to be a derivative of the Tender 
Emotion.'^^ 

A still further efiect of the same pleasurable kind is pro- 
duced on us by the admii'ation or esteem of others, the names for 
which are Approbation, Praise, Reputation, Glory, and the like. 

V. The elation of superior Power is a very marked and 
widely ramifying genus of pleasurable emotion, being an 



228 THE EMOTIONS AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. 

emotion of pure Relativity or Comparison ; the correlative is 
the pain of Impotence. 

YI. Anger or the Irascible Emotion is the pleasurable 
emotion of malevolence. 

The foregoing comprise the best marked of our simpler 
emotions. For although they are all more or less of a com- 
pound nature, yet there is, in each, something characteristic 
and peculiar, imparting a generic distinctness, and obtaining 
a separate recognition throughout the human race. 

VII. There are certain Emotional situations arising under 
the action of Will. Besides the pleasures and pains of Exer- 
cise, and the gratification of succeeding in an End, with the 
opposite mortification of missing what is laboured for, there is, 
in the attitude of Pursuit, a peculiar state of mind, so far 
agreeable in itself, that factitious occupations are instituted 
to bring it into play. When I use the term Plot-interest, 
the character of the situation alluded to will be suggested 
with tolerable distinctness. 

YIII. The exercise of the Intellect also is attended with 
states of Emotion. More especially, under the Law of Simi- 
larity, the identification of Like in the midst of unlike is the 
cause of agreeable surprise; while Inconsistency or Con- 
tradiction is an occasion of pain. 

IX. The foregoing classes possess each a certain unity 
and distinctness as respects their origin in the human con- 
stitution. The next class is one that has been very com- 
monly regarded as a unity in the investigations of philoso- 
phers. I mean the emotions of Fine Art, expressed by the 
single term Beauty, or the Beautiful. There is doubtless 
a certain individuality in the feeling that mankind have 
agreed to designate by the common phrase, ' the feeling of 
beauty,' but this community of character implies little more 
than a refined pleasure. If we take the productions of 
Fine Art, and examine the sources of the delight that they 
give us, we shall find a very great variety of species, notwith- 
standing the generic likeness implied in classifying them 
together. Many of our simple sensations, and many of the 
feelings belonging to the diSerent heads just enumerated, 
are brought into play by artistic compositions. 

X. The Moral Sense in man, like the sense of beauty, has 
been very generally looked upon as one and indivisible ; a 
position exceedingly open to question. The subject will be 
fully considered, in the part of this volume devoted to 
Ethics. 



NOVELTY. 229 



CHAPTEE III. 

EMOTIONS OF EELATIVITY : NOVELTY.— 
WONDEE.— LIBEETY. 

1. The Objects of the emotion of Novelty are well 
understood 

The Physical circumstance may be inferred to be a 
change in the locality of nervous action, extending also to 
the allied organs — the muscles and the senses. 

That pleasure should arise from varying the parts and 
organs stimulated, is a necessary consequence of the fact that 
stimulation is pleasurable. 

2. The Emotion is, in Quality, pleasurable ; in Degree, 
various, according to the stimulation, which may be acute 
or massive. It has no Speciality. 

The pleasure is, in fact, the primitive charm of all sensa- 
tion, before it has been dulled by continuance and satiety. 
It has the vagueness of character belonging to mere organic 
stimulation. 

3. The corresponding pain is Monotony, tedium, ennui. 

This arises from some parts of the system being unduly 
drawn upon, while others have their stimulation withheld. 
Its ordinary modes are generally known ; the extreme and 
agonizing degrees are made use of in punishment. 

Monotony is often aggravated by the pain of excessive 
Subjectivity, or self-consciousness. The absence of objective 
attractions leaves the mind in the subjective condition, which, 
when long continued, gives the sense of intolerable ennui. To 
be confined in the dark, or without occupation, is to be made 
the victim of subjective tedium. 

Under the Species of Novelty, we may indicate, first, the 
simple Sensations, as encountered in early life. Such of tr ese 
as are in their nature pleasing, are, in the first experience, 
. pre-eminently so. The general exhilaration designated by the 
word Freshness, is due, among other causes, to novelty of sen- 
sation. 

12 



230 EMOTIONS OF liELATIVITY. 

The primary sensations are speedily gone throngh, and 
fall into the ordinary routine of pleasures, which, by being re- 
mitted or alternated, continue to afford a certain measure of 
delight. The charm of novelty then belongs only to new and 
varied combinations, and in that form it may be sustained, 
although with decreasing force, to the end of life. New 
scenes, new objects, new persons, and new aspects of life, con- 
stitute the attractions of travel. Novelty in incidents and 
events, is furnished by the transactions of life, and by the pages 
of story. Inventions in the Arts, and discoveries in Science, 
have the initial charm of novelty, as well as the interest of 
permanent -utility. In Fine Art, whose end is pleasure, the 
powerful effects of novelty are earnestly invoked ; pleasurable 
surprises are expected of the artist in every department ; 
beauty must be enhanced by originality ; while the passion for 
change, nncontrolled, leads in the end to decadence. Last 
of all, in Fashion, novelty is supreme. Thronghont the whole, 
but one rule prevails ; other things the same, the greater the 
novelty, the greater the pleasure. 

4. Next to Novelty is Variety, alternation, or change. 

The longer any stimulant has been remitted, the greater 
the impression on its renewal. Variety is a minor form of 
novelty. 

Our happiness depends materially on the wise remission 
and variation of objects of delight. Mere change of pleasures 
will produce, within limits, a continuance of the pleasurable 
wave. Still, it is likely that periods of absolute indifference 
and quiet, if not of painful privation, should intervene, in 
order to maintain the highest zest of enjoyment. 

5. Surprise is a breach of expectation, and in addi- 
tion to mere Eelativity, includes an element of Conflict. 

In Surprise, we are said to be startled. There is a shock 
of contradiction, which is always exciting. The excitement 
may be pleasurable, painful, or neutral, according to the case. 
As pure conflict, it would be a source of pain ; as a pungent 
stimulus, when the nerves are fresh, it may be pleasui^able. 
Frequently, it is neither, being our typical instance of neutral 
emotion. 

The circumstances of the surprise may farther affect its 
character. When the occurrence is something better than 
we expected, there is an access of pleasure; when worse, 
of pain. 



WONDER.— -LIBERTY. 231 

6. Wonder, or the Marvellous, is felt on the view of 
what rises above, or what falls beneath, our expectations. 
In the one case, it is an elating emotion, of a kindred with 
the Sublime ; on the other, it tends to depression, or else 
to contempt. 

The pleasing side of Wonder is due to what greatly 
transcends use and wont. It is an emotion of pure relativity. 

If we exclude the side of Littleness and Contempt, every- 
thing included in Wonder has its foundation either in pure 
Surprise, on the one hand, which is the shock of contradic- 
tion, or in the admiration of what is great or Sublime, on the 
other. The full account of this last emotion belongs to a 
much later stage of the exposition. 

7. The opposing couple — Eestraint and Liberty — 
are wholly referable to Conflict, combined with Eelativily. 

Restraint is a case of conflicting impulses, and induces the 
depression due to conflict. It may have every variety of 
degree, being in all cases painful. The active spontaneity 
repressed by confinement ; the free vent of emotional difi'usion 
arrested by dread of punishment ; the voluntary movements 
opposed ; the wishes thwarted, — are cases of intestine conflict, 
and of sufiering. The pain induced has a speciality through 
its connexion with the active organs. In the more acfite 
struggles, it is characterized as a 'racking ' pain. 

There is a stimulating efiect in opposition or conflict. 
Physically, we may suppose, that the sudden check to the 
nervous currents develops new activity in the brain : while, 
mentally, it is a fact of pregnant application, that hostility, 
not overpowering, rouses the energies to more than ordinary 
efforts. This is seen in every species of contest. Even the 
intellectual powers attain a more commanding success in the 
ardour of polemics. 

Under continued restraint, the system at length adapts 
itself to the situation. The taming down of impulses by 
steady suppression is one of the effects of habit, exemplified 
in moral discipline. (See Moral Habits.) 

8. LiBEETY is the correlative of Eestraint. It is the 
joyous outburst of feeling on the release from a foregone 
bondage, or on the cessation of a couflict. 

The liberation must occur while the restraint is still 
painful ; after the system has thoroughly accommodated iiv' 



232 EMOTIONS OF RELATIVITY. 

self, there is no reaction, and no flush of joyous elation. 
This fact has been remarked in those that have grown old in 
servitude, or have undergone long imprisonment. So in 
minds long fettered by subscription to creeds, even the desire 
of freedom is extinct. 

The character of the emotion of Liberty is an undefined 
elation, or intoxication, great according to the suddenness 
and the extent of the release, as well as the previous galling 
of the chain. Like all other feelings of relativity, it can be 
renewed only by a renewal of the pain of restraint, and, there- 
fore, is not an absolute addition to the sum of happiness, ex- 
cept to those already in bondage. 

A condition so familiar to every human being needs little 
farther to be said in the way of example or illustration. We 
may remark, however, that Liberty has an incalculable value, 
as including the scope given to individuals to seek their own 
happiness in their own way. 

The emotions of Power and Impotence are, to some 
extent, coincident with the foregoing, but have a far wider 
range. In consequence of their superior complication and 
great importance, they are discussed in a separate chapter. 

We have included, in the present chapter, feelings of a 
very elementary and very general kind, subsisting purely by 
the contrast of opposites. We might give a very wide illus- 
tration to the general principle, by adverting to the painful 
depression of burdens, labours, toils, present and prospective ; 
and to the joyous rebound upon the occasions of their miti- 
gation or abatement. 



CHAPTEE IV. 
EMOTION OF TEEEOE. 

1. The emotion of Terror originates in the apprehen- 
sion of coming evil. Its characters are — a peculiar form 
of pain or misery ; the prostration of the active energies ; 
and the excessive hold of the related ideas on the mind. 

First, as to the Object, or cause — the apprehension of 
coming evil : — 



OCCASIONS OF TERROE. 233 

It does not appear that a present pain, without anticipa- 
tion, induces the state of fear. A person may have received 
a severe blow, but if it is done and past, although the smart 
remains, there is a total absence of terror. A present inflic- 
tion, as the beginning or foretaste of more to come, is pre- 
eminently a cause of the feeling. 

Sometimes the apprehension is of certain evil, as when 
some painful operation has to be gone through. The mere 
idea of pain is depressing, but the certainty of its approach 
gives a new character to the suffering. This situation, 
although, in one view, the most terrible, is yet the most favour- 
able to an effort of courageous endurance ; we are most ready 
to make an exertion, when we are sure it will be wanted. 

A second case is uncertain^ but possible or probable, 
calamity, as in the chances of a storm, a severe illness, an 
equal contest for a great stake. This is a state of varying 
probabilities and fluctuating estimate. The distraction may 
be harassing in the extreme. 

Any new uncertainty is especially a cause of terror. We 
become habituated to a frequent danger, and realize the full 
force of apprehension only when the evil is one previously 
unknown. Such are — the terror caused by epidemics, the 
apprehensions from an unexperienced illness, the feeling of a 
recruit under fire. 

2, Terror, on the physical side, shows both a loss and 
a transfer of nervous energy. Power is suddenly and 
extensively withdrawn from the Organic processes, to he 
concentrated on certain Intellectual processes, and on the 
bodily Movements. 

The appearances may be distributed between effects of 
relaxation and effects of tension. 

The relaxation is seen, as regards the Muscles, in the dropping 
of the jaw, in the collapse overtaking all organs not specially 
excited, in tremblings of the lips and other parts, and in the 
loosening of the sphincters. 

Next as regards the Organic Processes and Viscera. The 
Digestion is everywhere weakened ; the flow of saliva is checked, 
the gastric secretion arrested (appetite failing), the bowels de- 
ranged. The Expiration is enfeebled. The heart and Circulation 
are disturbed ; there is either a flushing of the face, or a deadly 
pallor. The skin shows symptoms of derangement — the cold 
sweat, the altered odour of the perspiration, the creeping action 
that lifts the hair. The kidneys are directly or indirectly affected. 
The sexual organs feel the depressing influence. The secretion of 
milk in the mother's breasts is vitiated. 



234 EMOTION OF TERROR. 

The increased tension is shown in the stare of the eye and the 
raising of the scalp (by the occipito-frontalis muscle), in the in- 
flation of the nostril, the shrill cry, the violent movements of pro- 
tection or flight. The stare of the eye is to be taken as an exag- 
gerated fixing of the attention on the dreaded object ; and there 
concurs with it an equally intense occupation of the thoughts in 
the same exclusive direction. Whatever movements of expression, 
or of volition, are suggested by these thoughts, have a similar 
intensity. 

That such a physical condition should be accompanied 
with great depression is a consequence of the theory of plea- 
sure and pain. The prostration afiects the most sensitive 
processes, the organic ; the increase of energy is in the move- 
ments, which have comparatively little sensibility. 

3. Mentally, Terror is a form of massive pain. 

The depression of a severe fright is known to be, for the 
time, overwhelming. If we apply the test of the submergence 
of pleasure, we shall reckon it one of the most formidable 
visitations of human sufiering. Of its Speciality, we can only 
say that the great depression is accompanied with great ex- 
citement. 

As regards Volition^ the pain would operate like any other 
pain to seek relief. It has been formerly remarked, that the 
generic tendency of all pain is to quench activity ; and this is 
more especially true when fear accompanies the pain. Hence, 
as a deterring instrument, and especially in subduing active 
opposition, terror is a great addition to mere pain ; nothing 
so efiectually tames the haughty spirit into submission. Its 
defective side (even if we overlook the misery) is shown, if 
we endeavour, by means of it, to induce great and persevering 
exertions, the discharge of multifarious duties ; the waste of 
power being incompatible with anything arduous. Slave 
labour is notoriously unproductive. 

With regard to the Intellect^ the characters of the emotion 
are very marked. The concentration of energy in the percep- 
tions and the allied intellectual trains, gives an extraordinary 
impressiveness to the objects and circumstances of the feeling. 
In a house believed to be haunted, every sound is listened to 
with avidity; every breath of wind is interpreted as the ap- 
proach of the dreaded spirit. Hence, for securing attention 
to a limited subject, the feeling is highly efficacious. 

Terror, in its intellectual excitement, aftbrds the extreme 
instance of the fixed idea, or the persistence of an image or 
intellectual train, against the forces of the will and the in- 



SPECIES OF TERROJi. 235 

tellect combined. An impending danger monopolizes the 
thoughts. The protracted forms of fear expressed by anxiety, 
watchfulness, care, — engross the intellect, to the exclusion of 
liberalizing studies. 

The influence of Fear on Belief, follows from its other 
characters. The tendency is to give way to the suggestions 
of danger, and to bar out all considerations on the other side. 

4. The following are the chief Species of Terror. 

(1) The case of the Lower Animals. 

In them, we have manifest traces of timidity, as an addi- 
tion to mere pain. In the deterring smart of the whip, there 
might be nothing beyond the effect of pain on the will ; while 
the threat of it is still pain in the idea. The evidence of fear 
is seen in the exaggerated activity inspired by trifling causes ; 
the surrender of great advantages to small risks. Still more is 
the state shown in the dread of what has never done any 
harm : the dread of the human presence, in so many animals ; 
the dread of other animals before experience of their disposi- 
tion ; and the liability to be disturbed by slight commotions, 
noises, and strange appearances. 

(2) Fear in Children. 

The mental system in infancy is highly susceptible, not 
merely to pain, but to shocks and surprises. Any great ex- 
citement has a perturbing effect allied to fear. After the 
child has contracted a familiarity with the persons and things 
around it, it manifests unequivocal fear on the occurrence of 
any thing very strange. The grasp of an unknown person 
often gives a fright. This early experience very much re- 
sembles the manifestations habitual to the inferior animals. 
At the more advanced stage, where known evils are 
to be encountered, if the child knows that it has to go 
through something painful, the feeling is of the usual or 
typical kind, modified only by the feebleness of the counter- 
actives, and the consequent vehemence of the manifestations. 

(3) Slavish Terror. 

Slavish terror takes its rise under a superior unlimited in 
power, capricious in conduct, or extreme in severity. The 
possibility of some great infliction is itself necessarily a cause 
of terror. The uncertainty that one knows not how to 
meet, or provide against, is still more unhinging. It is not 
possible to preserve composure under a capricious rule, except 
by being in a state of preparation for the very worst. The 



236 EMOTION OF TERROR. 

Stoical prescriptions of Epictetus, himself a slave, are in 
harmony with such a situation. Another circumstance tending 
to beget slavish fear is the conscious neglect of duty on the 
part of the inferior, he at the same time being unprepared 
calmly to face the consequences. The state of slavery is a 
state of terror from the power and arbitrary dispositions of 
the master ; the free-born servant has mainly to fear the 
effects of his own remissness. 

(4) Forebodings of disaster generally. 

The usual form of Fear may be expressed as the Fore- 
boding of evil or disaster, more or less certain. JSTo human 
being is wholly exempt from this condition ; it is a standing 
dish in the banquet of life. There is a possibility of en- 
countering evil with the minimum of fear, of bearing the pain 
by itself, without the unhinging apprehensions ; a lofty ideal 
realized only by a favoured few. 

The term Anxiety generally implies an element of fear, 
although it may be used when there is nothing intended but 
the rational and measured avoidance of pain, which is the 
true antithesis of fear. Suspicion expresses the inj9.uence of 
the fears on Belief. It is a state wherein trifling incidents are 
read as the'certain index of great calamities. More especially, 
it points to exaggerated estimates of the motives and inten- 
tions of other men.- To be suspicious is a part of the 
general temper of timidity. Panic is an outburst of terror 
affecting a multitude in common, and heightened by sympathy 
or infection. It has ruined many armies, otherwise equipped 
for victory. It renders a populace utterly uncontrollable in 
great emergencies. 

Like any other emotion, there may be a permanent asso- 
ciation between the state of Fear and the objects that have 
often called it forth, or have been connected with it. The 
mother is in habitual trepidation about a sick, or wayward, 
or incapable child. Even when there is no cause for alarm, 
a shade of terror is apt to be present. This has been called 
an Affection of Fear, as we have an Affection of Love, and an 
Affection of Anger (Hatred). The solicitude of a woman 
about her person and appearance, or of a man of genius for 
his fame, is an affection of fear. The same fact is expressed 
by Anxiety and Care. 

(5) The Terrors of Superstition. 

Our position in the world contains the sources of fear, 
Thc'vast powers of nature dispose of our lives and happiness 



DISTRUST OF OUR FACULTIES. 237 

with irresistible might and awful aspect. Ages had elapsed 
ere the knowledge of law and uniformity, prevailing among 
those powers, had been arrived at by the human intellecfc. 
The profound ignorance of primitive man was the soil wherein 
his early conceptions and theories sprang up ; and the fear 
inseparable from ignorance gave them their character. The 
essence of superstition is expressed by the definition of fear. 
An altogether exaggerated estimate of things, the ascription 
of evil agency to the most harmless objects, and false appre- 
hensions everywhere, are among the attributes of the super- 
stitious man. 

(6) The Distrust of our Faculties in new operations. 

In all untried situations, in the exercise of imperfect 
powers, and in the commencement of enterprises where we 
but partly see our way, we are liable to the quakings of 
terror. This is one of the miseries of early years. In great 
posts, where every movement affects the happiness of multi- 
tudes, the sensitive mind will always have a certain amount 
of apprehension. 

One remarkable form of this distrust is the being Abashed 
before a strange face, a new company, or a great multitude. 
This is a reproduction, in manhood, of childish fear, but the 
circumstances are somewhat altered. After we have seen some- 
thing of the world, we are aware of the possibilities of evil that 
lie in the compass of every human being ; every new encoun- 
ter is attended with dread, until experience gives assurance; we 
are apt to regard every man an enemy till we prove him a friend. 

It might be a question as regards shyness before strangers, 
whether the more instinctive form of dread, shown in enrly 
infancy, does not cling to us in later years, requiring a har- 
dening process to dispel it. If anything seemed to imply 
such a weakness, it would be the awful sensation of first ap- 
pearing, as a speaker or performer, before a large assembly. 
Probably, however, there is enough in the evil possibilities of 
the case to account for the excessive perturbation of most per- 
sons so situated. 

The world's censure may be looked at merely as so 
much pain, and estimated accordingly, or it may be accom- 
panied with the agitation of fear. Being somewhat uncertain 
and capricious, as well as potent for evil, it is liable to this 
aggravation of its severity. 

(7) The Fear of Death. 

In the fear of Deafh, we have two elements. The extinc- 



238 EMOTION OF TERROR. 

tion of life's pleasures, interests, and hopes, is looked forward 
to with apprehension according to the zest for these : in the 
young and vigorous, the misery of the prospect is extreme ; a 
youthful culprit sentenced to execution is heart-rending in 
his tones of anguish. The other element is the dread Un- 
known, which operates variously according to a man's temper, 
conscience, and education. 

5. Terror is farther illustrated by its Counteractives 
and Opposites — the sources of Courage. 

These are: — (1) Physical vigour of constitution; which 
resists the withdrawal of the blood from the organic functions. 

(2) The Active or Energetic Temperament ; or the presence, 
in large quantity, of what the shock of fear tends to destroy. 

(3) The Sanguine Temperament; which, being a copious 
fund of emotional vigour, shown in natural buoyancy, falness 
of animal spirits, manifestations of warm sociability, and the 
like, is also the antithesis of depressing agencies — whether 
mere pain, or the aggravations of fear. (4) Force of Will ; 
arising from the power of the motives to equanimity. (5) In- 
tellectual Force ; which refuses to be overpowered by the 
fixed idea of an object of fright, and so serves to counter- 
balance the state of dread. (6) In so far as terror is grounded 
on Ignorance, the remedy is Knowledge. The victories gained 
over superstition, in the later ages, h-ave been due to the more 
exact acquaintance with nature. Pericles, instructed in 
Astronomy under Anaxagoras, rescued his army from the 
panic of an eclipse, by a familiar illustration of its true cause. 

6. The Eeaction, or Eelief, from Terror, like any other 
rebound from a depressing condition, is cheering or 
hilarious. 

This is the source of the cheerfulness of the state of con- 
fidence, security, assurance ; a pleasure purely relative to the 
depression of fear. 

7. The uses of Terror in government, and in Educa- 
tion, are easily understood. 

The discipline of pain, if reinforced by terror, is still 
more efficacious in subduing obduracy of mind. Pride, inde- 
pendence, self-reliance, are incompatible with the perturbation 
of fear. 

8. The employment of the passion of Fear in Art de- 
mands explanation. • 



FEAK IN AKT. 239 

The essence of Fear is misery, and the essence of Art is 
pleasure. But incidental to Fear, is a certain amount of ex- 
citement, which may be so regulated as to have the pungency 
without the pain of the emotion. Mere sympathetic terrors, 
and still more such as are wholly fictitious, attain this happy 
medium. There is, nevertheless, a limit; which has been 
overstepped both by Shakespeare and by Walter Scott. 

A slight fear, with speedy relief, may be stimulating at 
all times. To robust constitutions, even serious danger is 
welcomed for its excitement. 



CHAPTER V. 
TENDEE EMOTION. 

I. Tenderness is a pleasurable emotion, variously 
stimulated, whose effect is to draw human beings into 
mutual embrace. 

The Objects, or causes of tenderness, are chiefly found 
in connexion with human beings and other sentient crea- 
tures ; towards whom alone it can be properly manifested. 

The exciting causes or stimulants of the feeling are, more 
particularly, the following, — 

First, the massive, or voluminous Pleasures. Under this 
head, we have already included slow movements, repose after 
exercise, repletion, agreeable warmth, soft contacts, gentle 
and voluminous sounds, mild sunshine. Such pleasures are 
known to soothe or calm down the activity, as opposed to the 
acute and pungent pleasures ; they also incite tender feeling. 

In the next place, very great pleasures incline to the ten- 
der outburst. Under the agitation of joy, an afiectionate 
warmth is manifested, demanding a response. Occasions of 
rejoicing are celebrated by social gatherings and hospitality. 

Thirdly, Pains are among the causes of tenderness. This 
seems a contradiction and a paradox ; but in reality it is con- 
sistent with all the characters of the feeling. There would be 
no marvel in calling a pleasure to our aid on occasion of pain ; 
the marvel is that, at that moment, the system is prepared to 
yield an assuagement merely because there is a want^ It 



240 TENDER EMOTION. 

has to be explained why this emotion in particular should 
be so ready to burst out in times of sutFering. We can 
best understand its occurring in connexion with pains of the 
affections. 

Fourthly, There are certain more local and special causes 
that deserve to be mentioned, as farther illustrating the feeling 
and its physical embodiments. The touch of the breast, the 
neck, the mouth, and the hand, and the movements of the 
upper members, are allied to this feeling ; as the contact and 
the movements of the inferior parts of the body are concerned 
in sexual excitement. The reason is to be found in the 
vicinity of the organic functions peculiar to each of the 
feeUngs. Farther, there are certain special stimulants in the 
higher senses. In Hearing, the high and mellow note, 
occurring sometimes in the wail of grief, and adopted in 
pathetic address, has a touching efficacy. By virtue of this 
coincidence, too early in its date to be the result of mere 
association, (and probably a mode of voluminous sensation), 
there is a power in the outburst of grief to affect others with 
tenderness. The ' dying fair is pathetic, as a mode of soft and 
pleasurable feeling. Finally, in Sight, the sensations of lustre 
have a like efficacy. The influence of the clear drop, ap- 
pearing on the moistened eye, and inducing the secretion in 
the eye of the beholder, is probably more than mere lustre ; 
it adds the stimulus to self- consciousness, and possibly an 
effect of association besides. 

The alliance of tenderness with inaction renders it the 
emotion of weakness ; whence the experience or the view of 
weakness very readily suggests it. The helplessness of 
infancy, of age, of sickness, of destitution, calls it forth. 
Even among inanimate things, slender and fragile forms, 
after being personified, are sources of tender feeling, and are 
thence considered objects of beauty. In Burke's theory of 
the Beautiful, this was made the central feature. 

2. The PHYSICAL side of the Tender Emotiou specially 
involves (1) Touch, (2) the Lachrymal Organs, and (3) 
the movements of the Pharynx. 

(1) The soft extended contact, the source of a voluminous 
sensation of touch, as a physical fact, is both the beginning and 
the end of the tender feeling. One might suspect a glandular, 
as well as a purely tactile, effect in this contact ; not only is 
the skin a vast secreting organ, but there is something in the 
feeling strongly analogous to the organic or visceral sensi- 



PHYSICAL ACCOMPANIMENTS OF TENDEKNESS. 241 

bilities. The remark is farther confirmed by the considera- 
tion of the next accompaniment. 

(2) The Lachrymal Organs — Gland and Sac — are specifi- 
cally afiected under the tender feeling. We must assiime two 
stages or degrees of this action ; a gentle, healthy fiow^ 
accompanied with genial sensibility, and, in the case of great 
stimulation, a violent, profuse flow, from excessive action 
and congestion of the brain, under pain or extreme joy. 

(3) The movements of the Pharynx, or bag of the throat, 
the muscular cavity where the food is swallowed, are suscep- 
tible to the tender feeling. In violent grief, these muscles 
are convulsed, so as to be unable to swallow ; in the gentler 
degrees, they are the seat of a sensibility characteristic of the 
emotion. Considering that these muscles are but the com- 
mencement of the muscular fibres of the alimentary canal, we 
may presume, from analogy, that the alimentary canal as a 
whole is afi'ected under the feeling. The phrase ' bowels of 
compassion' would point to this conclusion. 

In women, we must add, as an adjunct of tender feeling, 
the mammary secretion, an eminent addition to the sources 
of the feeling in organic sensibility. 

3. The link of sequence, physical and mental, between 
the stimulants of tender feeling and the manifestations- is 
to be sought in the common character of the two set^ of 
phenomena. 

It would be in accordance with the Law of Self-conserva- 
tion, that a pleasurable wave should extend itself, by reflexion 
from all the sources of the same emotion. If the warm em- 
brace is a cause of the feeling, the feeling, otherwise sug- 
gested, would seek its increase and consummation in the 
^embrace, as well as in the other responsive tokens of tender- 
ness — the smile, the glance, the tones, the sympathies of other 
•beings. 

The same principle is seen in the difi*usive manifestations 
of feeling generally. Joyful emotion prompts to the musical 
outburst that would, of itself, be an inspiration of joy. 

When pain is a stimulant, the motive still is to have 
recourse to something pleasurable. This is not the only 
resort on an occasion of pain. In some states. Anger, or 
the pleasure of malevolence, is called to aid ; the circum- 
stances being natural vigour, an irascible habit, and the 
absence of genial sympathies. When tenderness is invoked, 
the circumstances are usually extreme weakness, the tender 



242 TENDER EMOTION. 

disposition, or the connexion of the pain with some tender 
relationship. 

4. On the mental side, Tenderness is a feeling, in 
quality pleasurable, in degree massive and not acute. Its 
remarkable speciality (which may be a consequence of 
the foregoing properties) is its connexion with tranquillity 
and repose. 

It is the character of a voluminous excitement to affect 
lightly a large surface, being thus a more enduring and sus- 
tainable source of pleasure. This is pre-eminently the nature 
of the Tender Feeling, and constitutes its great value in 
human life. It is a tranquillizer under morbid excitement, a 
soothing power in pain, and a means of enjoyment when the 
forces of the system are at the lowest ebb, or in abeyance for 
the time. 

As regards Volition, the tender feeling prompts to efforts 
for its own fruition, like other pleasures, according to their 
degree. Its tranquillizing influence upon morbid excitement 
is the substitution of a new state, such as, from its occupying 
the mind strongly and agreeably, is a power to displace other 
states. 

The Intellectual peculiarity of tenderness follows from the 
others. Being easily sustained, it has in a high degree the 
property of persistence, and recoverabiiity in idea. 

The readiness to form permanent associations, under the 
law of Contiguity, is a further extension of the intellectual 
property. The feeling is one superadded to proper sensuous 
charm, as terror is an addition to mere pain ; but when often 
excited in connexion with an object of sense, it is kindled at 
the mere mention or suggestion of that object ; such habitual 
or associated Tenderness being the meaning of Affection. 

5. The mixed characters of the feeling farther illus- 
trate its main feature. 

The operation upon the Will in pursuit, corresponding to 
the degree of the pleasure and the retentiveness combined, is 
shown in the energies put forth in favour of objects of affec- 
tion and tender regrard. 

As Desire, this emotion maintains its consistency. In an 
easily sustainable feeling, the mere idea contains a large 
amount of the pleasure ; ' the imagination of the feast' is in 
some degree satisfying. Love is often satisfied with objects 
purely ideal. 



MATEKNAL KELATIONSHIP. 243 

The Control of the Attention and the Trains of thought, 
even in the ordinary degrees of the feeling, would naturally 
be great, while, in the intenser forms, it is apt to be overwhelm- 
ing. The same can be said of the allied efiect on Belief; the 
partialities of love, affection, and friendship, are counted upon 
as laws of human nature. 

SPECIES OF THE TENUEE EMOTION. 

6. It is the nature of the Emotion to vent itself mainly 
on human beings. 

A human person combines the stimulants beyond any other 
object. The sensuous exterior, the voice and movements pur- 
posely attuned, largely arouse the feeling, while the response 
supposes another personality. 

The companionable animals are within the compass of the 
feeling. 

The Family Grou]3, 

7. The relation of Mother and Offspring deserves to 
rank first. 

The infant, as a sensuous object, has all the properties that 
stimulate the feeling. The skin soft and pure, the eye fresh 
and clear, the outline rounded ; the diminutive size and help- 
lessness ; the interest of the comparison showing so much like- 
ness to the full-grown individual ; the action so different and 
yet so similar, — render the child an impressive object of ten- 
derness to every one. And in the case of the mother, there is 
superadded a powerful element of regard, arising out of the 
original relation to herself, and the special engagement of her 
energies in supporting the infant's existence. Such a com- 
bination of self-interest and the associations of a strong 
solicitude would, under any circumstances, stamp an object 
on the mind ; a house, or a garden, so situated grows upon 
the feelings of the possessor. When, however, the object is a 
human being of the age most fitted to act on the tender sus- 
ceptibilities, we can easily understand how this relationship 
becomes the crowning instance of intense personal regard. 

The full explanation of maternal love involves the fact of 
Sympathy, which is distinct from proper Tender feeling, 
although fusing with it. 

The Paternal relationship contains many of the same 
elements. There is less of personal contact, but the ideal 
feelings are no less strong, while the influence of contrast and 
the sentiment of protectqrship may be even greater. 



244 TENDER EMOTION. 

8. The relationsliip of the Sexes, founded in the pro- 
creative constitution, is one of Tenderness. 

The pleasure connected with the intercourse of the sexes 
is itself a stimulant of tenderness. There is, besides, that dif- 
ference of personal conformation, which makes the one sex a 
variety as it were to the other, possessing a distinct order of 
attractions. There can be no doubt of the extensive working 
of this principle, which puts a limit to the influence of the 
most perfect forms, and the highest excellence. The merits 
that we carry about with us are apt to pall upon our taste, and 
the objects that interest us must be something different, even 
although inferior. The greatest affinities grow out of the 
stronger contrasts ; with this important explanation, that the 
contrast must not be of hostile qualities, but of siipjplemental 
ones. The one person must not love what the other hates, 
but the two must mutually supply each other's felt deficiencies. 
Affections grounded on disparity, so qualified, exist between 
individuals of the same sex. The Platonic friendship was 
manifested chiefly between men of different ages, and in the 
relation of master and pupil. But in the two sexes there is a 
standing contrast, the foundation of a more universal interest. 
The ideal beauty arising from conformation is on the side of 
the woman : the interest of the masculine presence lies more 
in the associations of power. 

The Benevolent Affections, 

9. In Benevolence, the main constituent is Sympathy, 
which is not to be confounded with Tenderness. - 

It will be seen more fully afterwards, that, in Sympathy, 
the essential point is to become possess.ed of the pains and 
pleasures of another being. Now, the tender feeling, or love, 
greatly aids this occupation of mind with the feelings of 
others, but is not the sole agent concerned. Another power, 
of a more intellectual kind, is demanded. 

10. Sympathy not being necessarily a source of plea- 
sure, the Pleasures of Benevolence are incidental and in- 
direct. 

The following considerations are to be taken into account, 
in resolving this matter. 

In the first place, love or tender feeling, is by its nature 
pleasurable, but does not necessarily cause us to §eek the good 
of the object farther than is needful to gratify ourselves in the 



PLEASURES OF BENKVOLENCE. 245 

indulgence of the feeling. It is as purely self-seeking as any 
other pleasure, and makes no enquiry concerning the feelings 
of the beloved personality. 

In the second place, in a region of the mind quite apart 
from the tender emotion, arises the principle of Sympathy, or 
the prompting to take on the pleasures and pains of other 
beings, and act on them as if they were our own. Instead of 
being a source of pleasure to us, the primary operation of 
sympathy is to make us surrender pleasure and to incur pains. 

Thirdly, The engagement of the mind by objects of affec- 
tion gives them, in preference to others, the benefit of our 
sympathy ; and hence we are specially impelled to work for 
advancing their pleasures and alleviating their pains. It does 
not follow that we are made happier by the circumstance ; on 
the contrary, we may be involved in painful and heavy labours. 

Fourthly, The reciprocation of sympathy and good offices 
is a great increase of pleasure on both sides ; being, indeed, 
under favourable circumstances, one of the greatest sources of 
human delight. 

Fifthly, It is the express aim of a well-constituted society, 
if possible, never to let good offices pass unreciprocated. If 
the immediate object of them cannot or will not reciprocate 
in full, as when we relieve the destitute or the worthless, 
others bestow upon us approbation and praise. Of course, if 
benevolent actions, instead of being a tax, were self- rewarding, 
such acknowledgment would have no relevance. 

Sixthly, There is a pleasure in the sight of happy beings, 
and we naturally feel a certain elation in being instrumental 
to this agreeable effect, 

11. Compassion, or Pity, means Sympathy with dis- 
tress, and -asually supposes an infusion of Tender Feeling. 

The effective aid to a sufferer springs from sympathy pro- 
per, and may be accompanied, or not, with tender manifesta- 
tions. Many persons, little given to the melting mood, are 
highly sympathetic in the way of doing services. Others 
bestow sympathy, in the form of mere tender effusion, with 
perhaps little else. To be full of this last kind of sympathy 
is the proper meaning of Sentimentality. 

12. The receipt of favours inspires Gratitude ; of which 
the foundation is sympathy, and the ruling principle, the 
complex idea of Justice. 

Pleasure conferred upon us, by another human being, im- 



246 TENDER EMOTION". 

mediately prompts the tender response. With whatever power 
of sympathy we possess, we enter into the pleasures and 
pains of the person that has thus engaged our regards. The 
highest form of gratitude, which leads us to reciprocate bene- 
fits and make acknowledgments, in some proportion to the 
benefits conferred, is an application of the principle of Justice. 

13. In the Equal relationships of life, there is room for 
the mutual play of Benevolence and Gratitude. 

In brotherhood, friendship, co-membership of the same 
society, occasional inequalities give room for mutual good 
offices. In the tenderness thus developed, there is a bond of 
attraction to counterwork the rivalries and repellant egotisms 
of mankind. 

14. The operation of Sympathy renders the mere 
spectacle of Generosity a stimulant of Tender Feeling. 

This is one great producing cause of the fictitious tender- 
ness made use of in Fine Art. Sympathy interests us in 
other beings ; their pains and pleasures become to a certain 
extent ours ; and the benefits imparted to them can raise a 
tender wave in us. The more striking manifestations of 
generosity, as when an injured person or an enemy renders 
good for evil, are touching even to the unconcerned spectator. 

15. The Lower Animals are subjects of tender feeling, 
and of mutual attachment. 

Their total dependence forbids rivalry ; while their sen- 
suous charms, vivacity, their contrast to ourselves, and their 
services, are able to evoke tenderness and affection. 

The reciprocal attachment of animals to men, so much 
greater than they can maintain to their own species, shows 
that the sense of favours received is able to work in them the 
genuine tender sentiment. All that the feeling can amount 
to, in the absence of the totally distinct aptitude of sympathy, 
is seen in them, very much as it appears in early human 
infancy. 

16. There is a form of tenderness manifested towards 
Inanimate things. 

By associated pleasurable emotion, we come to experience 
towards our various possessions, and local surroundings, a 
certain warmth of the nature of an attachment. It is from 
their original power to give pleasure, that these things work 
upon the springs of tenderness ; bat, as they are unsuited to 



INANIMATE THINGS. 247 

its proper consummation, the indulgence of the feeling is 
imaginary or fictitious. The personifying impulse here comes 
to our aid ; and, by going through some of the forms, we ex- 
perience the reality, of tender regard. 

Sorrow. 

17. Sorrow is pain from the loss of objects of affection ; 
the tender feeling becoming a means of consolation. 

Affection supposes a habitual reference to another person, 
an intertwining of thoughts, interests, pleasures, and conduct, 
extensive in proportion to the intimacy of the relationship. 
To be deprived of such a one, is to lose a main stay of exist- 
ence ; on the principle of Self-conservation the loss is misery. 
The giving way of anything that we have been accustomed to 
depend upon, leaves us in a state of helplessness and wretched- 
ness, till we go through the process of building up new sup- 
ports. 

The lower animals are capable of sorrow. The dog will 
sometimes pine and die of absence from his master : being 
unable to endure the privation, or to reconstitute a bond of 
attachment. 

It is, however, the characteristic of the tender feeling to 
flow readily, on the prompting of such occasions, and to 
supply, in its almost inexhaustible fulness, a large measure of 
consolation. This is the genial and healing side of sorrow. 
It is a satisfaction not afforded, in the same degree, by other 
losses, — by failure in worldly aspirations, by the baulking of 
revenge, or by the incurring of an ill name. 

18. The Social and Moral bearings of tenderness are 
important, although the best part of the effect is due to 
the co-operation of Sympathy. 

Anything tending to give us pleasure in other beings 
makes us court society, and accommodate ourselves to others. 
The cultivation of the modes and expression of tenderness 
belongs to the arts of civilized man. 

Admiratioyi and Esteem, 

19. Admiration i^ the response to pleasurable feeling 
aroused by Excellence or superiority ; a feeling closely 
allied to love. 

The occasions of admiration are various and complicated, 
and will be resumed under the Sublime (Esthetic Emotions). 



248 TENDER EMOTION. 

What we notice here is that the feeling is one readily passing 
into tenderness ; the reason being not solely that it is a 
pleasure, but also that it supposes another sentient being to 
receive the admiring expression. 

The frequent transition from Admiration to Love shows 
the community of the two feelings : an admiration without 
some portion of kindly regard is an exceptional and artificial 
state, which it takes a certain effort of mind to entertain ; as 
in contemplating an Alcibiades or a Marlborough. 

20. Esteem refers to the performance of essential 
Duties, whose neglect is attended with evil. 

Our Esteem is moved by useful, rather than by shining, 
qualities. As we are painfully aware of the consequences of 
individual remissness in the duties and conduct of life, there is 
a cheering re-action in witnessing the opposite conduct. It is a 
rebound from pain not unmixed with apprehension, and being 
connected with persons, it falls into the strain of tender feeling. 
We esteem th^ prudent man, the just man, the self-sufficing 
or independent man; and our agreeable sentiment has its 
spring in the possible evils from the absence of these qualities, 
and is greater as our sense of those evils is greater. 

Both Admiration and Esteem are accompanied with 
Deference, a mode of gratitude to the persons that have 
evoked those sentiments. 

Veneration — the Religious Sentiment, 

21. The Religiotis Sentiment is constituted by the Tender 
Emotion, together with Eear, and the Sentiinent of the 
Sublime. 

We must premise that the generic feature of Religion is 
Government, or authority ; the specific difference is the 
authority of a Supernatural rule. It may thus be distin- 
guished from mere Poetic Emotions, which are so largely 
incorporated with it. 

The composition of the feeling is expressed in the familiar 
conjunction — ' wonder, love, and awe.' 

(1) The vastness of the presiding power of the world, in 
so far as it can be brought home, is a source of the elation of 
the Sublime. The great difficulty here is in connexion with 
the unseen and spiritual essence, which requires the sensuous 
grandeurs of the actual world, and the highest stretch of 
poetic diction, as aids to bring it within the compass of 
imagination. 



ELEMENTS OF VENERATION. 249 

(2) Our posifcion of weakness, dependence, and nncer- 
taintj, brings ns under the dominion of Fear. This feeling 
varies with our own conscious misdeeds, as compared with 
the exactions of the supreme Governor. The secondary uses 
of Eeligion, in the hands of the politician, are supposed to be 
favoured by the terror-inspiring severity of the creed; a 
weapon fraught with dangers. The autocrat of Russia was 
unable to induce even his soldiers to dispense with the Lenten 
fasting, during the ravages of cholera. 

In almost all views of E/cligion, the Sense of Dependence 
is given as the central fact. 

(8) Love or Tender Emotion enters into the feeling, 
according as the Deity is viewed in a benign aspect. There 
is a certain incompatibility between tenderness and fear; 
indeed, in any close relation between governor and governed, 
a perfect mutual affection is rare and exceptional ; the putting 
forth of authority chills tenderness. 

A great and beneficent being might be conceived, and is 
conceived, by many, as bestowing favours without imposing 
restraints, or inflicting punishments. It is to such a being 
that tender and adoring sentiment might arise in purity, or 
without the admixture of fear. The benefactor is in that 
case separated from the ruler, and the essential character of 
Religion is no longer present. 

Veneration^ in the terrestrial and human acceptation, is a 
sentiment displayed, not so much to active and present 
authority, as to power that is now passing or past. It 
mingles with the conception of greatness the pathos of mor- 
tality and decay. It is the tribute to the memory of the 
departed, and is sometimes expressed by rites of a semi- 
religious character. The followers of Confucius in China, 
who have no religion, in the proper sense of the term, join in 
the periodical observances of the Chinese in honour of their 
departed ancestry. 

Reverence is a name for high admiration and deferential 
regard, without implying authority. We may express reve- 
rence and feel deferenco to a politician, a philanthropist, or a 
man of learning or science. 



250 EMOTIONS OF SELF. 



CHAPTER VT. 
EMOTIONS OF SELF. 

1. The term ^ Self is not used here in any of its wide 
acceptations, but is a brief title for comprehending two 
allied groups of Feelings — the one expressed by the names 
Self-gratulation, Self-complacency, Self-esteem, Pride ; the 
other by Love of Approbation, Vanity, Desire of Fame, or 
Glory. 

The comprehensive words Selfishness, Self-seeking, Ego- 
tism, imply the collective interests of the individual, as ex- 
cluding, or simply as not including, the interests of others. 
There are, therefore, many forms of egotism besides what are 
to be now treated of. For example, the love of Power (not 
here inclnded) is at the extreme pole of Egotism ; being 
scarcely, if at all compatible, with a regard to others. Many 
feelings are in themselves purely egotistic, but their enjoy- 
ment is not complete without a social alliance, such as Tender- 
ness and Sexual feeling ; these are sympathetic by accident, 
if not by design. 

SELF-GRATULATION AND SELF-ESTEEM. 

2. This is the feeling experienced when we behold in 
ourselves the qualities that, seen in others, call forth ad- 
miration, reverence, love, or esteem. 

. Admiration, as above stated, combines the elation of the 
sublime with tenderness, and is, in favourable chcumstances, 
highly pleasurable. Any fresh display of excellence, of a kind 
that we are able to appreciate, fills us with delight, part of 
which may be. set down to the indulgence of the admiring 
sentiment. 

In the present case, we have to consider what change is 
effected, when we ourselves are the admired personality. The 
pleasure, in such circumstances, is usually much greater. 
The question arises, is it the same sentiment, with assignable 
modifications, or is it a new feeling of the mind ? 



SELF-COMPLACENCY A MODE OF TENDERNESS. 251 

3. The PHYSICAL side of the feeling presents an ex- 
pression of marked pleasure, serene and placid, such as 
might accompany tender feeling. 

There is nothing in this expression to give a clue to the 
ultimate analysis of the feeling, although quite consistent 
with the view to be given of it from the mental side. 

4. On the mental side, we may consider self-com- 
placency as a mode of tender feeling, with self for the 
object ; the pleasure caused by it, is the pleasure of admir- 
ing an object of tender affection. 

Let us suppose, first, the case of admiration drawn forth 
to a beloved person, as when a parent is called to witness the 
merits, virtues, or charms of a child. There is here obviously 
a double current of pleasurable excitement ; the admiration 
wakens the affection into active exercise, and the aroused 
affection quickens the admiration. It is not to be believed 
that the pleasure of admiring one that we are interested in, 
from other causes, should be only the same as towards a per- 
son wholly indifferent. 

Now, there are various facts to show, that every human 
being is disposed to contract a habitual self- tenderness, so 
as to become, each to one's self, an object of affection. 

It is towards other personalities that we have the full and 
primary experience of the tender feeling, but if it can extend 
in any form to inanimate things, much more should it arise 
towards our own personality. When, besides the enjoyment 
of pleasures, and the pursuit of ends, we direct our attention 
upon self as the subject of all those pleasures and pursuits, 
we may be affected with a superadded tender feeling, which 
will in time grow into an affection. The attentions and care 
of the mother to the child greatly contribute to the strength 
of her affection ; the sickly child is often the most beloved. 
A similar round of •attenCions and care, consciously bestowed 
on self, have a similar tendency ; we may in this way, if we 
indulge ourselves in self-consciousness, become the object of 
self-tenderness, growing into self-affection (a feeling not to be 
confounded with what is commonly called self-love). 

It is possible for the regards to take a direction so exclu- 
sively outward, to be so far absorbed with other personalities, 
and purely external concerns, as not to become habitual to- 
wards self. In such a situation, the self-complacent senti- 
ment would be dried up ; the sight of excellence in certain 



252 EMOTIONS OF SELF. 

other persons might have a warm and pleasing efficacy, while 
in self it would awaken but a feeble response. Such a total 
absence of self-gratulation may be rare, because the self-con- 
scious tendency can hardly be nullified by any outward at- 
tractions ; yet there are wide variations of degree in the feel- 
ing, as there are great differences in the choice of objects of 
tender concern. 

If such be the derivation of the sentiment, its characters 
are plain. It is a pleasure of great amount, allied to the pas- 
sive side of our being, and possessing all the recommendations 
of the tender feeling. It may subsist in a condition of weak- 
ness and prostration ; it is easily sustained and recovered in 
the ideal form ; if based on a large emotional nature, it may 
afford a copious well-spring of enjoyment. 

It has the same high intellectual efficiency as the original 
form of tenderness ; directiug the attention, controlling the 
thoughts, and inducing beliefs in conformity with itself. 

5. The more usual Specific Fokms of the feeling have 
received names in common language. 

Self-complacency expresses the act of deriving pleasure 
from mentally revolving one's own merits, excellencies, pro- 
ductions, and imposing adjuncts. It also disposes us to court 
the sympathy and attention of others, by verbal recitals to 
the same effect. 

Self-esteem and Self-conceit imply a settled opinion of 
our own merits, followed up with what is implied in esteem, 
namely, preference to others, on a comparison. This preference 
is shown most conspicuously in the feature of Self-confidence ; 
which may be a sober and correct estimate of our own powers, 
but may also be an estimate heightened by self-tenderness or 
affection. In some characters, of great natural abundance of 
energy, active or emotional, the feeling is so well sustained as 
to dispense with the confirmation of other men's opinions. This 
is the respectable, but unamiable, cHiality of Self-sufficingness. 

Self-respect and Pride suggp ^ the feeling as a motive to 
conduct. Having formed a high estimate of self in certain 
respects, we are restrained from lowering that estimate by 
inconsistent conduct. The skilled workmnn has a pride in 
not sending out an inferior prodt.- '"ion. 'i e man of upright 
dealings, if he is consciously proud of his o^' n integrity, has 
an additional motive for strictness in acting up to it. It is 
the sense of honour, viewed as self-honour ; and may co-exist 
with regard to the sentiments of others. 



HUMILITY. — SELF-ABASEMENT. 253 

Self-pity — being sorry for one's self— is a genuine mani- 
festation of the feeling before us. It is unmistakeable as a 
mode of tender feeling, and yet it ends in self; being a strong 
confirmation of the foregoing analysis. 

Emulation, and the feeling of Superiority, express the 
emotion, as it arises in the act of measuring ourselves with 
others. All excellence requires a comparison, open or im- 
plied ; when the comparison is openly made, and, when we 
are distinctly aware of our advantage over another person, 
and enjoy the pleasure of that situation, the feeling is called 
•sense of Superiority, and the impulse to gain it. Emulation. 
Envy is the feeling of inferiority, with a malevolent sentiment 
towards the rival. 

6. There are well-marked forms of Pain, in- obverse 
correspondence to the pleasures now described. 

Most amiable and estimable, on this side, is the virtue 
named Humility and Modesty, which, without supposing self- 
depreciation, implies that, for the sake of others, we abstain 
from indulging self-complacent sentiment. It is a species of 
generosity^ in renouncing a portion of self-esteem, to allow a 
greater share of esteem to others. 

The sense of positive Worthlessness or Demerit is the 
genuine pain of self-tenderness, and is denoted by the names 
Humiliation and Self-abasement. It is not often that human 
beings can be made to feel this state ; the regard to self is too 
strong to allow it a place. When it does gain a footing in the 
mind, the anguish and prostration are great in proportion to 
the jpy of the opposite state. It is analogous to the discovery 
(also slow to be made) of demerit in objects of affection, which 
operates as a shock of revulsion and distress, of the severest 
kind. Just as the pleasures of tender feeling diffuse them- 
seWes over the life, by their ideal: self- subsistence, so do the 
pains of worthlessness in one's own eyes, if they have once 
taken possession of the mind. 

Self-abasement, the consequence of a sense of demerit, is 
also the first step towards relief ; supposing, as it does, that 
the person has renounced all pretensions to merit, and ac- 
quiesced in the penalties of guilt. The penitential state 
begins with cons^^ jus wouoJ^ssness, and proceeds to regain 
the lost position by new endeavours.. 

Self-reproach is another name applicable to the loss of one's 
good opinion of self. 

- 13 



254 EMOTIONS OF SELF. 



LOVE OF APPEOBATION. 



7. The fee]ing of being approved, admired, praised by 
others, is a heightened form of self-gratulation, due to the 
workings of sympathy. 

The operation of sympathy will be minutely traced in a 
subsequent chapter. It is enough here to assume, that 
the coinciding expression of another person sustains and 
strengthens us in our own sentiments and opinions ; there^ 
being assignable circumstances that vary the influence exerted 
by the sympathizer. 

When we are affected with any emotion, the sympathy of 
another person may increase both the intensity of the feeling, 
and the power of sustaining it; in either way, adding to 
the pleasure of whatever is pleasurable. Our admiration of 
a work of genius is more prolonged, has a brighter and more 
enduring glow, when a sympathizing companion shares in it. 

Again, as regards our strength of assurance in our opinions 
or convictions, we are greatly assisted by the concurrence of 
other persons. A conviction may be doubled or tripled in 
force, when repeated by one whom we greatly respect. 

N^ow, both the circumstances named are present in the 
case of our being commended by others. Our self-complacency 
is made to burn brighter, and our estimate of self is made 
more secure, when another voice chimes in unison with our own. 

It is also to be noticed, that a compliment from another 
person is an occasion for bringing our own self-complacency 
into action. As our various emotions show themselves only 
in occasional outbursts from long tracks of dormancy, we are 
dependent on the occurrence of the suitable stimulants. Now, 
as regards self-complacency, one stimulant is some fresh per- 
formance of our own ; another is a tribute from some one else. 
Xovelty in the stimulation is the condition of a copious out- 
pouring of any emotion, pleasurable or otherwise. 

To the intrinsic pleasure of Approbation, and the corre- 
sponding pain of Disapprobation, we must add the associations 
of other benefits attending the one, and of evils attending the 
other. Approbation suggests a wide circle of possible good, 
or the relief from possible cq,lamities, which must greatly en- 
hance the cheering influence exerted by it on the mind. As 
influences of Joy on the one hand, and of Depression on the 
other, the manifested opii^ions of our fellow-beings opcupj^ a 
high place among the agencies that control our happiness. 



APPROBATION AND DISAPPROBATION. 255 

8. The following are Species, or modes, of the feeling 
of being admired. 

Mere Approbation is the lowest, and the most general, 
form of expressing a good opinion. It may intimate little 
more than a rescne from disapprobation, the setting our mind 
at ease, when we might be under some doubt; as in giving satis- 
faction to a master or superior. The pleasure in this case is a 
measure of our dread of disapprobation and its consequences. 

Admiration, and Praise, mean something higher and more 
stirring to self-complacency. Flattery and Adulation are 
excess, if not untruth, in the paying of compliments. Glory 
expresses a high and ostentatious form of praise ; the general 
multitude being roused to join in the acclaim. Reputation or 
Fame is supposed to reach beyond the narrow circle of an 
individual life, and to agitate remote countries, and distant 
ages ; an effort of imagination being necessary to realize the 
pleasure. Future Fame is not altogether empty ; the applause 
bestowed on the dead resounds in the ears of the living. 
Honour is the according of elevated position, and is shown by 
forms of compliment, and tokens of respect. 

The rules of Polite society include the bestowal of compli- 
ment with delicacy. On the one hand, the careful avoidance 
of whatever is calculated to wound the sense of self-importance, 
and, on the other hand, the full and ready recognition of all 
merit or excellence, are the arts of a refined age, for increasing 
the pleasures of society and the zest of life. 

9. The varieties of Disapprobation represent the painful 
side of the susceptibility to opinion. 

Disapprobation, Censure, Dispraise, Abuse, Libel, Reproach, 
Vituperation, Scorn, Infamy, are some of the names for the 
infliction of pain by the hostile judgments of others. If we 
are ourselves conscious of demerit, they add to the load of 
depression ; if we are not conscious of any evil desert, they 
still weigh upon us, in proportion as we should be elated by 
their opposites. As signifying the farther evils associated 
with ill opirrion on the part of society, the intense disappro- 
bation of our fellow-men, uncounteracted, is able to make life 
unendurable. 

The pain of Remorse is completed by the union of self- 
reproach with the reproach of those around us. Many that 
have little sensibility to the first, acutely realize the last. 
The feeling of Shame is entirely resolvable into disapproba- 
tion, either openly expressed, or known to be entertained. 



256 EMOTION OF POWER. 

10. Self-complacency and the Love of Admiration are 
motives to personal excellence and public spirit. 

Egotistic in their roots, the tendency of these feelings may 
be highly sociab Indeed, so much of social good conduct is 
plainly stimulated by the rewards and punishments of pubhc 
opinion, that some ethical speculators have been unable to 
discern any purely disinterested impulses in the conduct of 
men. 

The unsocial side of these emotions is manifested in the 
intense competition for a luxury of limited amount. The dis- 
posable admiration of mankind is too little for the claims 
upon it. 



CHAPTEE VIL 

EMOTION OF POWEE. 

!• The Emotion of Power is distinct from both the 
pleasure of Exercise and the satisfaction of gaining our 
Ends. It is due to a sense of superior might or energy, 
on a comparative trial. 

We have already seen what are the pleasures connected 
with muscular Exercise, when there is surplus vigour to dis- 
charge. There may also be a certain gratification in intellec- 
tual exercise, as exercise, under the same condition of abound- 
ing energy in the intellectual organs. 

In the active pursuit of an End, there is necessarily some 
pleasure to be gathered, or pain to be got rid of. When our 
exertion secures our ends, it brings us whatever satisfaction 
belongs to those ends. 

Neither of these gratifications is the pleasure of Power ; 
which arises only when a comparison is made between two 
persons, or between two efibrts of the same person, and when 
the one is found superior to the other. 

The sentiment of superior Power is felt in the development 
of the bodily and mental frame. The growing youth is pleased 
at the increase of his strength ; every new advance, in know- 
ledge, in the conquest of difficulties, gives a thrill of satisfac- 
tion, founded essentially on comparison. The conscious 
decline of our faculties in old age is the inverse fact. 



THE EMOTION OF POWER SUBSISTS ON COMPAEISON. 257 

A second mode of comparison has regard to the greater 
productiveness of our efforts ; as when we obtain better tools, 
or work upon a more hopeful material. The teacher is 
cheered by a promising pupil. An advanced grade of command 
gives the same feeling. 

The third mode is comparison with others. In a contest, 
or competition, the successful combatant has the gratification 
of superior power. According to the number and the great- 
ness of the men that we have distanced in the race, is our 
sense of superiority. Like all other relative states, the emotion 
cannot be kept up at the highest pitch without new advances. 
Long continuance in an elevated position dulls the mere sense 
of elevation (without derogating from the other advantages) ; 
in proportion as the remembrance of the inferior state dies 
away, so does the joy of the present superiority. The man 
that has been in a high position all his life, feels his greatness 
only as he enters into the state of those beneath him ; if he 
does not choose to take this trouble, he will have little con- 
scious elation from his own pre-eminence. 

2. The PHYSICAL side of the emotion of Power shows 
an erect lofty bearing, and a flush of physical energy, as if 
from a sudden increase of nerrous power; a frequent 
accompaniment is the outburst of Laughter. 

Erectness of carriage and demeanour is looked upon as 
the fitting expression of superior might; while collapse or 
prostration is significant of inferiority. If we advert to the 
moment of a fresh victory, we shall see the proofs of increased 
vital power in the exuberance and excitement, and in the dis- 
position for new labours. We are accustomed to contrast the 
spirits of men beating with the spirits of men beaten. 

There are various causes of the outburst of Laughter, but 
none more certain than a sudden stroke of superiority, or 
the eclat of a telling effect. The evidence is furnished in the 
undisguised manifestations of childish glee, in the sports of 
youth, and in the hilarious outbursts of every stage of life. 

The physical invigoration arising from a sense of superior 
power is in conformity with the general law of Self-conserva- 
tion. Conscious impotence is a position of restraint, a con- 
flict of the forces ; to escape from it is the cessation of a 
struggle, the redemption of vital energy. 

The bearing on the Will is a consequence of the special 
alliance of the state with our activity. By it we are disposed 
to energy not merely through its stimulus as pleasure, but 



258 EMOTION OF POWER. 

also tlirougli its direct influence on the active side of our con- 
stitution. This can be best understood by contrast with the 
passive tone under tender emotion. 

3. On the mental side, the feeling of Power is, in 
Quality, pleasurable ; in Degree, both acute and massive ; 
in Speciality, it connects itself with our active states. 

The gratification of superior Power falls under the com- 
prehensive class of elating, or intoxicating pleasures, due to a 
rebound, or relief from previous depression. It is most nearly 
allied to Liberty. In both, the active forces are supposed to 
have been in a state of wasting conflict, from which they are 
suddenly rescued. 

Intellectually, this pleasure is not of the highest order, if 
we *are to judge from the cost of sustaining it. Being an 
acute thrill, it may impress the intellect in one way, namely, 
in the fact of its having been present; but we do not easily 
repeat the pleasure ideally, in the absence of the original 
stimulation. Hence its mere memory would give compara- 
tively little satisfaction, while it might contain the sting and 
prompting of desire. In this respect also, it is contrasted 
with tenderness. As a present feeling, it has power to oc- 
cupy the mind, to control the thoughts, and to enthrall the 
beliefs. 

4. Next, as to the Specific forms of the emotion. 

What is vulgarly called ' making a sensation,' is highly 
illustrative of the rebounding elation of conscious Power. 
This is the infantile occasion of hilarity and mirth. Any act 
that gives a strong impression, that awakens the attention, or 
arrests or quickens the movements of others, reflects the power 
of the agent, and stimulates the joyous outburst. To cause a 
shock of fright, or disgust, or anger (not dangerous), is highly 
impressive, and the actor's comparison of his own power with 
the prostration of the sufierer occasions a burst of the joyous 
elation of power ; laughter being a never- failing token of the 
pleasure. 

The control of Large Operations reflects by comparison the 
sense of superior efiiciency. This is the position of the man 
in extensive business, the employer of numerous operatives, 
all working for his behoof. Such a one not merely reaps a 
more abundant produce, but also luxuriates in a wide control. 

The exercise of Command or Authority, in all its multitu- 
dinous varieties, is attended with the delight of power. It 



SPECIES OF THE EMOTION. 259 

appears in the headship of a family ; in early ages, a position 
of uncontrolled despotism. It is incident to all the relations of 
master and servant. In some forms of employment, as in 
military service, it is, for certain reasons of expediency, made 
very impressive ; the contrast between the airs of the superior 
and the deferential attitude of the inferior, is purposely ex- 
aggerated. In the departments of the state, great powers 
have to be entrusted to individuals, who thereupon feel their 
own superiority, and make others feel their inferiority. 

The pleasure of Wealthy especially in large amount,, in- 
volves to a high degree the sentiment of power. Riches buys 
the command of many men's services, and gives, unemployed, 
the feeling of ideal power. 

By force of Persuasion, eloquence, counsel, or intellectual 
ascendancy, any one may have the consciousness of power, 
without the authority of office. The leader of assemblies, or 
of parties in the state, enjoys the sentiment in this form. 

The luxury of power attaches to Spiritual ascendancy. In 
the ministry of religion, a man is conscious of an authority 
superior to all temporal rule. The preacher is apt to suppose, 
that his most ordinary composition is raised, by a supernatural 
afflatus, to an efficacy far beyond the choicest language em- 
ployed by other men. 

Even superior Knowledge gives a position of conscious 
power, although the farthest removed from the influence of 
force or constraint. In proportion as a man possesses infor- 
mation of great practical moment, such as others do not 
possess, he is raised to an eminence of pride and power. 

The love of Influence, Interference, and Control, is so ex- 
tensive and salient as to be a great fact in the constitution of 
society, a leading cause of social phenomena. It prompts to 
Intolerance, and the suppression of individuality. Many are 
found willing to submit to restraints themselves, provided 
they can impose the same upon their unwilling neighbours. 

In the disposition to intrude into other people's affairs, and 
to give opinions favourable or unfavourable on the conduct of 
mankind generally, there is still the same lurking conscious- 
ness of power. More openly and avowedly, it shows itself in 
the various modes of conveying Disapprobation, whether ex- 
torted by the just sense of demerit, or set on for the plea- 
sure of raising ourselves by judging and depreciating others. 
Contempt, Derision, Scorn, Contumely, measure the greatness 
of the person expressing them, against the degradation and 
insignificance of the person subjected, to them. 



260 IRASCIBLE EMOTION. 

The feeling of Power is likely to abound in the active or 
energetic temperament, to which it is closely allied. In the 
form of Ambition, it takes possession of sucb minds ; who have 
their crowning satisfaction in becoming the masters of man- 
kind. We need only to refer to the class of men that suc- 
cessively held the throne of Imperial Home. 

The present emotion will now be seen to be widely differ- 
ent from the feelings considered in the foregoing chapter, 
although fusing readily with these. Men have often sought 
power at the sacrifice of reputation ; and have enjoyed ascen- 
dancy accompanied with universal hatred. 

5. The pains of Impotence are in all respects the oppo- 
site of the pleasurable sentiment of Power. 

Being subject to other men's wills, and rendered small by 
the comparison ; being beaten in a confl.ict ; being dependent 
on others ; being treated with contumely and contempt ; being 
frustrated in our designs, — all bring home the depressing 
sense of littleness. A great exertion with a trifling result is 
the occasion of ridicule and contempt. 

Belonging to the exercise of power is a form of Jealousy. 
Any one detracting from our sense of superiority, influence, 
command, mastership, — stings us to the quick ; and the resent* 
ment aroused, to which is given this formidable designation, 
shows the intensity of our leelings. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 
lEASCIBLE EMOTIOlSr. 

1. The Irascible Emotion, or Anger, arising in pain, 
is marked by pleasure derived from the infliction of pain. 

The unmistakeable fact of Anger is that pointed out by 
Aristotle, the desire to put some one to pain. 

2. The Objects of the feeling are persons, the authors 
of pain, or injury. 

Inanimate objects may produce pain in us, together with 
some of the accompaniments of anger, as for example, the 
rousing of the energies to re-act upon the cause of the pain ; 



PHYSICAL SIDE OF ANGER. 261 

but, without clothing them in personality, we cannot feel 
proper anger towards these. The old Arcadians, when nnsnc- 
cessfal in the chase, showed their resentment by pricking the 
wooden statue of Pan, their Deity. 

3. The PHYSICAL manifestations of Anger, over and 
above the embodiment of the antecedent pain, are (1) 
general Excitement ; (2) an outburst of Activity ; (3) De- 
ranged Organic functions ; (4) a characteristic Expression 
and Attitude of Body : and (5), in the completed act of 
Eevenge, a burst of exultation. 

(1) A general Excitement of the system follows any 
shock, especially if sudden and acute, yet not crushing. The 
direction that the excitement takes depends on other things. 

(2) In Anger, the excitement reaches the centres of Activity 
and rouses them to an unusual pitch, sometimes to frenzy 
bordering on delirium. Herein lies the contrast to Eear, 
which draws off power from the active organs, and excites the 
centres of sensibility and thought. 

(3) The derangement of the Organic functions is pro- 
bably due solely to the withdrawal of blood and nervous 
power ; it does not assume any constant form. The popular 
notion as to ' bile ' being secreted in greater abundance, is no 
farther true than as implying loss of tone in the digestive 
organs. 

(4) The Expression of Feature and the Attitude of Body 
are in keeping with strong active determination, bred by pain. 

(5) In the stage of consummated Retaliation, the joyful 
and exulting expression mingles with the whole, and gives a 
peculiar set to the features, a complication of all the impulses. 

4. On the mental side, Anger contains an impulse 
knowingly to inflict suffering upon another sentient being, 
and a positive gratification in the fact of suffering in- 
flicted. 

The first and obvious efiect of an injury is to rouse us to 
resist it. We may do more ; we may, for our more efiectnal 
protection, disarm and disable the person that has injured us. 
All this is volition, and not anger. Under the angry feeling 
we proceed farther, and inflict pain upon the author of 
the injury, knowing it to be such, and deriving satisfaction 
in proportion to the certainty and the amount of the 
pain. This positive pleasure of malevolence is the fact to be 
resolved. 



262 IRASCIBLE EMOTION. 

5. In the ultimate analysis of Anger, we seem to trace 
these ingredients : — (1) In a state of frenzied excitement, 
some effect is sought to give vent to the activity. (2) The 
sight of hodily infliction and suffering seems to be a mode 
of sensuous and sensual pleasure. (3) The pleasure of 
^power is pandered to. (4) There is a satisfaction in pre- 
venting farther pain to ourselves, hy inducing fear of us, 
or of consequences, in any one manifesting harmful 
purposes. 

(1) When the state of active excitement is induced, some- 
thing must be done to give it scope or vent. To be full of 
energy, and have nothing for it to execute, is an unsatisfactory 
state to be in. Some change or effect produced on inanimate 
things, wholly irrelevant to the occasion, gives a certain 
measure of relief. Kicking away a chair, upsetting a table, 
tearing down a bell-rope, are the actions of a man under a 
mere frenzied or maniacal excitement. The rending of the 
clothes, among the Jews, would seem intended to signify a 
great shock and agitation, with frenzied excitement. 

(2) In the spectacle of bodily infliction and 'suffering, 
there seems to be a positive fascination. In the absence of 
countervailing sympathies, the writhings of pain furnish a 
new variety of the sensuous and sensual stimulation arising 
from our contact with living beings. In the lower races, the 
delight from witnessing suffering is intense. 

(3) In putting another to pain, there is a glut of the 
emotion of power or superiority. The felt difference or con- 
trast between the position of inflicting pain, and the being 
subjected to it, is a startling evidence of superior power and a 
source of joy and exultation. The childish delight in making 
an effect, or a sensation, is at its utmost, when some person or 
animal is victimized and shows signs of pain. 

Were it not for our sympathies, our fears, and our con- 
scientious feelings generally, this delight would be universal ; 
we should omit no chance of gratifying it. Xow, when an- 
other person puts us to pain, or causes us injury, the imme- 
diate effect is to suspend the feelings of sympathy, respect, 
and obligation, and to open the way for the other gratifica- 
tions. It is putting the injurer under the ban of the empire — 
making him an outlaw ; the sacredness of his person is torn 
away, and he is surrendered to the sway of the passions that 
find their delight in suffering. It is rare in a civilized com- 
munity to victimize the harmless and innocent ; let, however, 



ANGER IN THE LOWEK ANIMALS. 263 

any man or animal, by their bearing or ill conduct, furnish a 
pretext for suspending habeas corpus in their case, and a mul- 
titude will be ready to join in their destruction. 

(4) In retaliating upon the author of an injury, to the 
point of effectually deterring from a renewal of the offence, 
we deliver ourselves from a cause of fear; which is fco enjoy 
the reaction and relief from a depressing agency. We have 
this satisfaction in destroying wild beasts ; in punishing a 
gang of robbers ; in routing and disarming an aggressive 
power. 

Considered as a pleasurable gratification, the feeling will 
vary according to the element that we suppose to prevail. 
If the chief fact be the glut of sensnality and of power, the 
feeling is one of great and acute pleasure, and might be de- 
scribed in part by the language already given with reference 
to the emotion of power, 

6. Th^ various aspects and Species of Anger may next 
be reviewed. 

In the Lower Animals, certain manifestations pass for 
modes of irascibility. The beasts of prey destroy and devour 
their victims, with all the frantic excitement of wrath ; while 
some herbivorous animals, as the bull and the stag, fight one 
another to the death. All animals possessing courage and 
energy repel attacks and invasion by positive inflictions ; the 
poisonous reptiles and insects, when molested, discharge their 
venom. 

The vehemence in the destruction of prey is nothing more 
than volition under the stimulus of hunger. So in resisting 
attacks, the animal is awakened to put forth its active endow- 
ment, whatever that may be. It is not easy to fix the point 
where something more than the exertion of enei'gy is con- 
cerned. An ordinary development of intelligence in discerning 
the means to ends, would enable an animal to see, in the de- 
struction of a rival, a step to the satisfjdng of its own sensual 
appetites. It is possible that an effect of association might 
convert this means into an end in itself, like the miser's love of 
money ; so that even an animal without special wants, in the 
abundance of surplus energy, might manifest its destructive pro- 
pensity uncalled for. In bull-fighting and cock-fighting, the 
active energies are under express stimulation from without, and 
the fury manifested has all the frenzied excitement of rage. 
Still, it is not necessary to assume anything beyond a mere 
rudiment of the proper pleasure of power. The victorious 



264 IRASCIBLE EMOTION. 

animal may have sufficient recollection of its own chequered 
experiences to enter somewhat into the position of being van- 
quished, and to feel the difference between that and success ; 
and exactly as this intellectual and emotional comparison is 
within the compass of its powers, will it feel the glut of its 
own superiority. If we are unalDle to assign to any but the 
highest animals such an intellectual range as this, we cannot 
credit animals generally with the developed form of anger. 

By the study of Infancy and Childhood, we may expect to 
see the gradual . unfolding of the passion. The earliest ex- 
periences of pain in the infant lead to a more or less energetic 
excitement of grief. After the development of distinct likings 
and dislikings, with the accompanying voluntary determina- 
tions, any strong repugnance will lead to a burst of energetic 
avoidance ; following the law of the will. There will likewise 
be the manifestation of beating off a rival claimant, as means 
to an end. Then comes the stage above supposed to be trace- 
able in the higher animals, the sense of one's own present 
energy, in comparison with the understood pain and humilia- 
tion of another. Only the human intellect can fully attain 
such an elevation ; but when it is attained, the pleasure of 
power has come to birth, and, therewith, genuine anger. 
The child is not long out of the arms when it reaches this 
point, and it proceeds rapidly to perfect the acquisition. Side 
by side with the sense of power over others, will also be 
shown the venting of active excitement on things inanimate. 

In the irascible feeling, as seen in maturity, it has been 
usual to make a distinction between Sudden and Deliberate 
Anofer. The Sudden form of Anger is the least complicated, 
and shows the natural and habitual disposition. Excitable 
temperaments, not trained to suppression, are those liable to 
the sudden outburst. 

In Deliberate Anger, or Hevenge, the mind considers all 
the circumstances of the injury, as w^ell as the measure and the 
consequences of retaliation. There is implied, in Revenge, the 
need of retaliation to satisfy the feelings of the offended per- 
son. According to the amount of the injury, and to the exact- 
ing disposition of the injured party, is the demand for ven- 
geance. When men have been injured on matters that they 
are deeply alive to, — plundered, cheated, reviled, deprived of 
their rights, — their resentment attests the magnitude of their 
sufferings, the value that they set upon their own inviolability. 
The ordinary measure of revenge, in civilized life, is in some 
proportion to the fancied injury ; the barbarian exceeds all 



HATRED. — ANTIPATHY. 265 

proportions, and gluts himself with the satisfaction of ven- 
geance. What are we to expect from him that can take un- 
mingled delight in the sufferings of an unoffending fellow- 
being ? 

The affection grounded on anger is called Hatred. The 
sense of some one wrong never satisfied, a supposed harmful 
disposition on the part of another, an obstructive position 
maintained, — keep up the resentful flame, till it has become an 
affection, or a habit. Sometimes a mere aversion or disUke is 
cherished into hatred. Rivalry, superiority in circumstances, 
the exercise of power or authority, are frequent causes. 
A familiar example is seen in Party spirit. Men banded 
together in sects or parties, generally entertain a permanent 
animosity to their rival sects. It is in this form of the affec- 
tion that Anger becomes a paramount element of one's life, 
like Tender Affection, Habitual Anxiety, or Cultivated Taste. 
Modified by accidental causes, sometimes intensified by special 
provocation, sometimes neutralized by temporary occasions of 
sympathy, it is one of the moral forces of the human being, 
imparting pleasure and pain, controlling the attention and 
thoughts, and swaying the convictions. 

The formidable manifestation named Antipathy, is stronger 
than Hatred. It owes part of its intensity to an infusion of 
Fear. The violent antipathies towards certain animals, as the 
poisonous reptile, are in a great measure due to fear. Others 
offend sensibilities of the aesthetic kind, as when they are asso- 
ciated with filth and disgust. 

Even towards human beings, the state of Antipathy may 
arise without the provocation of injury, as in the antipathies 
of race, of caste, and of creed. The natural or artificial repug- 
nance thus occasioned will inspire, no less than vengeance, a 
disposition to inflict harm, and to exult over calamity. 

The state of Warfare, Hostility, Combat, brings before us 
the irascible feeling in its highest activity. The elements pre- 
sent are too obvious to require detail. The potency of opposi- 
tion, as a stimulant of the active powers, has already been 
adverted to. A frenzied active excitement is the characteristic 
fact of hostility, as of anger. Fighting and rage are not two 
things, but the same thing. 

The different grades and varieties of offence make corres- 
ponding differences in the spirit and manner of retaliation. In 
the case of Involuntary harm, the wrathful impulse is transi- 
tory, unless it be from avoidable carelessness, which is treated 
as a fault demanding reparation. It is common for persons. 



266 IKA.SCIBLE EMOTION. 

without intending harm, to proceed with their own objects, 
giving no heed to the feelings or interests of others ; as in 
tobacco smoking. Lastly, there is the case of malicious 
design, which necessarily provokes, to the fall, the resentful 
energy of the sufferer. 

Seeing that the wrathful feelings originate in pain, and lead 
to the risks of a counter resentment, some Ethical writers have 
contended against the reality of a Pleasure of Malevolence. But 
these attendant pains are only a part of the case. It is true that 
when the sympathies and tender feelings are highly developed, 
the exercise of resentment may be more painful on the whole than 
pleasurable ; in this case, however, it is suppressed ; a bene- 
volent mind seldom gives way to revenge. The burden of proof 
lies upon whoever would maintain that mankind deliberately and 
energetically aim at a present pain. The fact is known to occur 
under certain modes of excitement, and possibly, therefore, in the 
irascible excitement. We have already noticed the influence of 
fear, in thwarting the ordinary course of the will. But revenge 
is far too common, too persistent in its exercise, both in hot blood 
and in cool, to be an insane fixed idea, working nothing but pain. 
The whole human race cannot be under a mistake on this head. 
The Homeric sentiment would be echoed by the millions of every 
a*ge, — Eevenge is sweeter than honey. 

When resentment comes to the aid of the moral feelings, 
as revenge for criminality and wrong, it is termed ' Righteous 
Indignation.' A positive and undeniable pleasure attends the 
retributive vengeance that overtakes wrong-doers and the 
.tyrants and oppressors of mankind. The designation ' Xoble 
Rage ' points to a more artistic effect, being the display of 
anger in striking attitudes, and magniloquent diction, as in a 
hero of romance — the Achilles of Homer, the Satan of Paradise 
Lost. 

7. The working of Sympathy gives a great expansion 
to the irascible feelinc: ; to whatever decree we enter into 
the injuries of others, we also participate in their Eevenge. 

Inasmuch as the occurrence of injury is a wide- spread fact, 
it makes a considerable part of our interest as spectators of 
actual life. We receive a shock, more or less painful, when 
a great wrong is perpetrated before our eyes ; and have a 
corresponding pleasure in the retaliation. The historian can 
sometimes gratify us by the spectacle of retribution for 
flagrant wrongs ; the romancist, having the events at com- 
mand, allows few failures. 

8. In the Sentiment of Justice, when analyzed, there 



PUNISHMENT. 267 

may be traced an element of resentful passion ; and the. 
idea of Justice, when matured, guides and limits revenge. 

A main prompting to Justice, in the first instance, is 
sympathetic resentment. But in the fully developed idea of 
the Just, there is a regard to the value of one man as com- 
pared with another, according to the reasonings and conven- 
tions of the time. 

9. The infliction of Punishment, by law, although 
gratifying to the sympathetic resentment of the community, 
is understood to be designed principally for the prevention 
of injury. 

The design of punishing offenders by Law is to secure the 
public safety. Incidental to this is the gratification of re- 
sentment; which, however, is still to be in subjection to the 
principal end. Mr J. S. Mill remarks that there is a legiti- 
mate satisfaction due to our feelings of indignation and re- 
sentment, inasmuch as these are on the whole salutary and 
worthy of cultivation, although still as means to an end.* 



CIIAPTEK IX. 
EMOTIONS OF ACTION— PUESUIT. 

1. In voluntary activity three modes of feeling have 
now been considered : — (1) the pleasures and pains of 
exercise ; (2) the satisfaction - of the end (or the pain of 
missing it) ; and (3) the pleasure of superior (and pain of 
inferior) power. 

* ' Tbe benefits which criminal law produces are twofold. In the 
first place, it prevents crime by terror ; in the second place, it regulates, 
sanctions, and provides a legitimate satisfaction for the passion of revenge. 
I shall not insist on the importance of this second advantage, but shall 
content myself with referring those who deny that it is one, to the works 
of the two greatest English moralists, each of whom was the champion of 
one of the two great schools of thought upon that subject — Butler and 
Bentham, The criminal law stands to the passion of revenge in much 
the same relation as marriage to the sexual appetite.' (J. F. Stephen's 
Criminal Law, Chap. IV., p. 98.) 



268 EMOTIONS OF ^VCTION — PURSUIT. 

There remains the mental attitude under a gradually 
approaching end, a condition of suspense, termed Pursuit 
and Plot-interest. 

In working to some end, as the ascent of a mountain, or 
in watching any consummation drawing near, as a race, we 
are in a peculiar state of arrested attention, which, as an 
agreeable effect, is often desired for itself. 

2. On the physical side, the situation of pursuit is 
marked by (1) the intent occupation of some one of the 
senses upon an object, and (2) the general attitude or 
activity harmonizing with this ; there being, on the whole, 
an energetic muscular strain. 

When the pursuit is something visible, we are * all eye,' as 
in witnessing a contest; if the end is indicated by sound, as 
in listening to a narrative, we are all ear. If we are specta- 
tors or listeners merely, the general attitude shows mascular 
tension ; if we are agents, we are sustained in our activity by 
the approach of the end. 

3. On the mental side, Pursuit supposes (1) a motive 
in the interest of an end, heightened by its steady ap- 
proach; (2) the state of engrossment in object regards, 
with remission of subject regards. 

Some end is needed to stimulate the voluntary energies ; 
and, by the Law of Self-conservation, the gradual approach 
towards the consummating of the end heightens the energies, 
and intensifies the pursuit. 

Now, all muscular exertion is objective (p. 21) ; it throws us 
upon the object attitude, and takes us out of the subject atti- 
tude. Whatever promotes muscular exertion, both as to the 
intensity of the strain, and the number and the importance of 
the muscles engaged, renders us objective in our regards, and 
withdraws us from the subject side. More especially are we 
put in the object position by the energetic action of the exter- 
nal senses, so extensively and closely allied with the ^cerebral 
activity. Hence, whatever keeps up an intent and unremitted 
muscular strain, involving the higher senses, is an occasion of 
extreme objectivity ; and this is the essential character of pur- 
suit and plot-interest. 

The value of the situation is relative to the circumstance 
that we are apt to be too much thrown upon the subject con- 
which, although essential to enjoyment (for per- 



OBJECTIVITY IS INDIFFERENCE. 269 

feet objectivity is perfect indifference) is also the condition of 
our being alive to suffering, and of our dwelling upon our 
pleasures till they exhaust us and pass into the pains of ennui. 
Subjectivity is apparently more costly to the nervous system ; 
the objective attitude, if not unduly strained, can be longest 
endured. A« far as actual pleasure is concerned, it is time 
lost ; but an unremitted pleasurable consciousness is beyond 
human nature ; tracts of objective indifference seem as neces- 
sary to enduring life, as the total cessation of consciousness 
for one- third of our time. These objective tracts are found in 
our periods of activity, and especially the activity of the bodily 
organs ; but they occur most advantageously when the activity 
is bringing us near to an interesting goal of pursuit. 

It is the nature of the waking mind to alternate from 
object to subject states, the one giving as it were a refreshing 
variety to the other. A highly exciting stimulus, as a stage 
performance, keeps us in the objective attitude, but not in 
unbroken persistence or perfect purity ; wei^e it not for our 
frequent lapses into subjectivity, we should .slip out of the pri- 
mary motive, and submerge the whole of the enjoyment. The 
transitions are performed with great rapidity ; the same atti- 
tude may not last above two or three seconds ; while, the 
longer we are kept in the object strain, the sweeter is the 
relapse to the subject consciousness, supposing it to be 
pleasurable. 

4 Chance, or Uncertainty, within limits, contributes 
to the engrossment of Pursuit. 

Absolute certainty of attainment, being as good as pos- 
session, does not constitute a stimulus to plot-interest ; in look- 
ing forward to the payment of an assured debt, there is no ex- 
citement. But a certain degree of doubt, with possibility of 
failure, gives so much of the state of terror as excites the 
perceptive organs to the look-out; in which situation, the 
steady approach of the decisive- termination, either cheers us, 
by removing the fear, or increases the strength of the gaze, by 
deepening the doubt. 

The most favourable operation of uncertainty is when 
there is before us a prospect of something good, such that 
the attainment is a gain, while failure only leaves us as we were. 
There is not, in this case, the depressing terror of impending 
calamity, but merely the agitation consequent on our hopes 
being raised, and yet not assured. Still, if the stake be high, 
the fear of losing it will deprive the situation of the favour- 



270 EMOTIONS OF ACTION — PURSUIT. 

able stimulns of plot-interest. It is by combining a small 
amount of uncertainty with a moderate stake, that we best 
realize the proper charm of pursuit. 

As in all other things, Novelty gives zest to pursuit. A 
new game, a new player, a different arrangement of parties, 
will freshen the thoughts, and re-animate the dubiousness of 
the issue. 

5. The excitement of Pursuit is seen in the Lower 
Animals. , 

An animal chasing its prey puts forth its energies accord- 
ing to the strength of its appetite. The excitement, however, 
manifestly becomes greater near the close, when the victim is 
gradually gained upon, and all but seized. We have here the 
essentials of the situation ; and the feelings of the animal may 
be presumed to cori^espond with its accelerated movement, 
and intensified expression. 

6. As regards human experience, we may first tafee 
notice of Field Sports. 

In these, the end is, to most men, highly grateful ; being 
the triumph of skill and force in the capture of some animal 
gifted with powers of eluding the pursuer. The pursuit is 
long and uncertain ; the attention is on the alert, and at the 
critical moments screwed up to a pitch of intensity. To suc- 
ceed in bringing down the victim after a hot and ardent pur-' 
suit, is to relapse from an objective engrossment, into a 
subjective flash of successful achievement and gratified power. 

The circumstances of the difierent sports are various, and 
easily assigned. The most difficult to account for, perhaps, 
is the interest of Angling ; there being so many fruitless 
throws against one success. We need to suppose that the 
Angler has an emotional temperament more copious and self- 
sustaining than most other men. In the Chase, there are 
additional excitements of a fiery sort, to make it the acme of 
the sporting life. The more dangerous sports of hunting the 
tiger, the elephant, the boar, are ecstasy to the genuine 
sportsman. 

7. The excitement' of pursuit is incident to Contests. 
The combatant in an equal, or nearly equal contest, has a 

stake and an uncertainty that engages his powers and en- 
grosses his attention to the highest pitch. His objectivity is 
strained to the uttermost limits, and if he succeeds, he gains 
the joys of triumph, after being forcibly withdrawn from self- 
consciousness. 



CONTESTS. 271 

The excitement of contests has, in all ages, been a favourite 
recreation. The programme of the Olympic games was a 
series of contests. Gladiatorial shows, Tournaments, Races, 
have had their thousands of votaries. Even the encounters of 
the intellect — in disputation, oratory, wit, — attract and detain 
a numeroQS host of spectators. 

In many of the common games, skill and strength are dis- 
turbed by Chance, which opens up to each player greater 
possibilities, and therefore quickens the intensity of the object 
regards. In Cards and Dice, although long-continued play 
eliminates chance, yet, for a single game, hazard is nearly 
supreme. 

8. The occupations of Industry involve; more or less, 
the suspense of Plot-interest. 

Wherever our voluntary energies are engaged, a certain 
attention is fastened on the end, which has a suspensive or 
arrestive effect. Hence all industry is, to some degree, anti- 
subjective, or calculated to take a man out of himself. The 
prisoner's ennui does not attain its extreme pressure unless he 
is debarred from occupation. But, where there is great 
monotony in the execution, together with certainty, as well as 
absence of novelty, in the result, — for example, in turning a 
wheel, or unloading a ship, — there is little to stretch the gaze, 
or arrest the attention. The exciting occupations are those 
that involve high and doubtful prospects, as war, stock-jobbing, 
and the more hazardous species of commerce. In Agriculture, 
the seasons supply a succession of ends, with the interest of 
suspense, often attended with pain and disappointment, but 
still of a kind to sustain the objective outlook. 

In every piece of work that has its beginning, middle, and 
end, there is an alleviation of tedium by measuring the steps 
gained, and watching the remainder as it dwindles to nothing. 

9. In the Sympathetic Eelationships, there is the 
additional interest of plot. 

The gratifying of the tender feelings being an end in life, 
the progress towards it necessarily inspires the forward look, 
and the suspensive attitude, from which the relapses into sub- 
jective consciousness are exciting by alternation. All the 
successes, the epochs and turning points in the career of an 
object of affection, a child or a friend, give periods of intent 
occupation, taking one out of self, and out of one's own 
pleasures. Still, we are seldom losers by the objective atti- 



272 EMOTIONS OF ACTION — PURSUIT. 

tude ; we are made the more alive to the subjective relapses ; 
and, if pleasure be awaiting us, it is all the greater for the 
diversion. 

10. The search after Knowledge is attended with plot 

The feeling of knowledge attained being one of the satis- 
factions of life, the gradual approach to some interesting dis- 
closure, or some great discovery, enlivens the forward look 
and the attitude of suspense. The sense of difficulty to be 
solved, of darkness to be illuminated, awakens curiosity and 
search ; and the near prospect of the result has the same effect 
as in every other engaging pursuit. The art of the teacher 
and expositor lies first in awakening desire, by a distinct 
statement of the end to be gained, and then in carrying the 
pupil forward by sensible stages to the consummation; the 
attitude of suspense is identical with earnest attention. 

11. The position of the Spectator contains the essen- 
tial part of the interest of pursuit. 

Any chase, contest, or pursuit, of a kind to interest us as 
actors, commands our sympathy as spectators ; and the 
moments of nearing the termination and settling the issue 
inspire our rapt attention. As with sympathy generally, this 
circumstance gives a great additional scope to our interest 
and our feelings. Contests are peculiarly fitted to arrest the 
gaze of the spectator ; and they have accordingly been adopted 
into the public amusements of all times. The daily business 
of the world, as, for example, the large affairs of nations, by 
affecting us either personally, or sympathetically, usually con- 
tain a stake, a greater or less uncertainty, and a final clearing 
up preceded by a state of suspense. We may also witness 
with interest, the steps and issues of great (or even small) 
industrial undertakings, provided their consummation is cal- 
culated to give us pleasure, and is attained through a proo-ress 
from uncertainty. 

12. The Literature of Plot, or Story, is the express 
cultivation of the attitude of suspense. 

A narrative will give the same sympathetic interest as a 
spectacle. An interesting.stake, at first remote and uncertain, 
is brought nearer by degrees ; and whenever it is visibly ap- 
proaching to the decision, the hearer assumes the rapt atti- 
tude that takes him out of the subject sphere. Events o-oino- 
on around us, and past history for the first time made known, 



PAINS INCIDENT TO ACTIVITY. 273 

command the elements of the situation, and thence derive much 
of their power of detaining the mind. But, whereas real events, 
although containing the circumstance of suspense, often dis- 
appoint expectation, the composer of fiction and romance 
studies how to work up the interest to the highest pitch. 
The entire narration in an epic poem, or romance, is con- 
ceived to an agreeable end, which is suspended by inter- 
mediate actions, and thrown into pleasing uncertainty ; while 
minor plots engage the attention and divert the pressure of 
the main plot. 

13. The form of pain, incident to pursuit, is the too 
great prolongation of the suspense. 

There is a pain in the crossing of our wishes as to the 
catastrophe. There is also the safiering caused by a high and 
serious risk. But the form of pain special to the attitude of 
suspense, is the prolongation or adjournment of the issue. 
This is merely one of the many forms of the pain of Conflict; 
the mind is wrought up to a certain attitude of expectation, 
to be baulked or disappointed. 

14. The'more general pains accompanying activity are 
connected in various ways with the labour or difl&culty of 
execution. 

Excessive muscular efforts produce the pains of muscle. 
Baffled attempts, from want of strength or skill, have the 
dispiriting effect of all thwarted aims, according to the law 
of Conflict. 



CHAPTEE X. 
EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. 

1. The operations of the Intellect may be attended with 
various forms of pleasure and pain. 

As mere exercise, the Intellectual trains may give pleasure 
in a fresh condition of the system, and be attended by nervous 
fatigue when long continued. 



274 EMOTIONS OF INTELLECT. 

2. The working of Contiguity, as in ordinary memory, 
does not yield any emotional excitement. . Laboured recol- 
lection brings the usual pain of difficulty or Conflict. 

We derive no emotion from repeating the alphabet or the 
multiplication table. The pleasures and pains of memory are 
due to the things remembered, and not to the exercise of 
remembering. 

Laboured recollection is a case of baffled endeayours, and 
brings the distress, more or less acute or massive, of that form 
of Conflict. Of a similar nature are all the pains, both of 
difficult intellectual comprehension, and of difficult construc- 
tiveness. The successive checks sustained by the thinking 
powers, in a work of thought, have the same painful character, 
as checks to the muscular powers in a manual enterprise, 
The student labouring long in vain to understand a problem, 
the poet dissatisfied with his verses, the man of speculation 
puzzled and defeated, the military commander undecided as to 
his tactics, all experience the pains of distraction and conflict. 

3. To complete the painful side of Intellectual exercise, 
reaction from which is the main source of- intellectual 
pleasure, we may add the pain of Contradiction or Incon- 
sistency. 

Contradiction or Inconsistency is one of the most obvious 
forms of Conflict, and, in proportion to its hold on the mind, 
gives all the characteristic pain of conflict. When our im- 
mediate interests are concerned, the contradiction is felt in 
thwarting some end of pursuit ; as when we receive contra- 
dictory opinions respecting the character of an ailment, or the 
conduct of a law suit. On subjects that concern others and 
not ourselves, the pain of the contradiction depends on the 
strength of the sympathies. With regard to truth generally, 
or matters of science and erudition, where the applications to 
practice are not immediately apparent, contradictions produce 
no impression on the mass of men ; they are felt only by the 
more cultured intellects, who are accustomed to contemplate 
all the bearings of true knowledge, and who have thereby con- 
tracted a strong sense of its value. 

4. The pleasure attending strokes of Similarity in 
diversity may be described generally as an agreeable or 
exhilarating Surprise. Yet, the largest part of the pleasure 
is the sudden and unexpected relief from an intellectual 
burden. 



'^^^ DISCOVERIES OF SIMILARITY. 275 

There can be no novelty or freshness in the trains of 
Contiguity ; but the operation of Similarity in bringing to- 
gether, for the first time, things hitherto widely apart, makes 
a flash of novelty and change, the prime condition of emotional 
efiect. The Greeks that conquered India, under Alexander, 
must have been surprised at finding in that remote region 
words belonging to their own language. 

It is not, however, the flash of novelty from an original 
coDJunction of ideas, a new intellectual situation, that fills up 
the charm of original identities ; it is their efiect in alleviating 
or removiug the intellectual burdens and toils above described 
as the pains of intellect. When, by a happy stroke of Simi- 
larity, the difiiculties of comprehension and of constructiveness, 
just alluded to, are cleared away, there is a joyous reaction 
and elation of the kind common to all forms of relief from 
conflict and oppression of the faculties. The instances will be 
given under separate heads. 

5. New identities in Science — whether classifications, 
inductions, or deductions— increase the number of facts 
comprehended by one intellectual effort. 

This has been abundantly seen in the exposition of Simi- 
larity. Every great generahzation, as Gravity, the Atomic 
theory, the Correlation of Force, enables us to include in one 
statement an innumerable host of particulars. To any one 
previously endeavouring to grasp the details, by separate acts 
of attention, the generalizing stroke that sums all up in a 
single expression, brings a toilsome march to a glorious and 
sudden termination. The pleasure is determined by the pre- 
vious pain, by the sense of difficulty overcome, and by the 
position of cordmand attained, after being conscious of the 
former position of grovelling inferiority. 

Sometimes a new discovery operates to solve a contradic- 
tion or anomaly, in which case the result is equally an elation 
of relief from intellectual pain in the form of distraction or 
conflict. 

6. Great discoveries of Practice, besides contributing 
to knowledge, give the elation consequent on the enlarge- 
ment of human powT.r. 

Such discoveries as the steam-engine, which have the 
efiect of either diminishing human toil, or increasing its pro- 
ductiveness, minister directly to the sentiment of increased 
power, as well as 'of increased resources for all purchasable 



276 SYMPATHY. 

enjoyments. In this point of view, the pleasure is not so 
much in the intellect, as in the results upon our other sen- 
sibilities. 

The strongest part of the sentiment that attaches us to 
Truth is due to the urgency of practical ends. The True is 
something that we can rely upon in the pursuit of our various 
interests. Whether it be in firing a deadly shot, or in escap- 
ing a deadly pestilence, truth is the same as precision, accu- 
racy, certainty, in adjusting the means to the end. The 
emotion of Truth is a feeling of E-elativity or comparison, a 
rebound or deliverance from the miseries of practical error. 

7. Illustrative Comparisons are another mode of re- 
mitting intellectual toil. 

The happy comparisons or analogies that illuminate the 
obscure conceptions of science, are pleasing from the same 
general cause, the lightening of intellectual labour. The 
celebrated simile of the Cave, in Plato's Republic (see Ap- 
pendix A), is considered to assist us in viewing the difficult 
question relating to the nature of Knowledge. 

The comparisons of poetry introduce another element, not 
strictly of the nature of intellectual pleasure, namely, the 
hkrmony of the feelings. Possibly the ultimate foundation of 
the pleasure of harmony is the same, but the difference between 
the strictly intellectual form, and what enters into Fine Art, is 
such as to constitute two species in the classification of the 
emotions, . 



CHAP TEE XL 
SYMPATHY. 

1. Sympathy is to enter into the feelings of another, 
and to act them out, as if they were our own. 

Notice has already been taken of the disposition to assume 
the feelings of others, to become alive to their pleasures and 
pains, to act vicariously mider the motive power of those plea- 
sures and pains. We have seen that Pity is tender emotion 
conjoined with sympathy. 



FOUNDATIONS OF SYMPATHY. 277 

2. Sympathy supi^oses (1) one's own remembered ex- 
perience of pleasure and pain, and (2) a connexion in the 
mind between the outward signs or expression of the 
various feelings and the feelings themselves. 

(1) The good retentiyeness or memory for our states of 
pleasure and pain, the intellectual basis of Prudence, is also 
the basis of Sympathy. We cannot sympathize beyond our 
experience, nor up to that experience, without some power of 
recalling it to mind. The child is unable to enter into the 
joys and griefs of the grown-up person ; the humble day- 
labourer can have no fellow-feeling with the cares of the rich, 
the great, the idle ; the man without family ties fails to realize 
the feelings of the domestic circle. 

(2) The various feelings have outward signs or symptoms, 
learned for the most part by observation. Noting how we 
ourselves are outwardly affected under our various feelings, 
we infer the same feelings when we see the same outward 
display in others. The smile, the laugh, the shout of joy, con- 
joined in our own experience with the feeling of delight, when 
witnessed in some one else, are to us an indication and proof of 
that person's being mentally affected, as we remember, our- 
selves to have been, when moved to the same manifestations. 

It matters little, so far as concerns reading the emotions, 
whether the knowledge of the signs of feeling is wholly 
acquired, or partly acquu-ed and partly instinctive. There 
are certain signs of feeling that appear to have a primitive 
efficacy to excite the feeling ; as, for example, the moistened 
eye, and the soft wail of grief. But sympathy is something 
more than a mere scientific inference that another person has 
come under a state of tenderness, of fear, or of rage ; it is the 
being forcibly possessed for the time by the very same feeling. 
In this view, there must be a certain energy of expressiveness, 
or suggestiveness, in the signs of feeling, which is favoured 
by the combination of primitive with acquired connexion. 

As examples of the energetic and catching modes of ex- 
pression, we may mention the sound of clearing the throat, 
the yawn, laughter, sobbing. Such emotions as Wonder, 
Fear, Tenderness, Admiration, Anger, are highly infectious, 
when powerfully manifested. 

3. Sympathy is a species of involuntary imitation, or 
assumption, of the displays of feeling enacted in our 
presence; which is followed by the rise of the feelings 
themselves. 

14 



278 SYMPATHY. 

We are supposed to give way to the manifestatioQS of 
another's feelings, to imitate those manifestations, and as a 
consequence to be affected with the mental state conjoined 
therewith. Even when we do not repeat the displays of feel- 
ing to the full, we have the idea of them, that is, their em- 
bodiment in the nervous currents, to which attaches the 
corresponding state of mind. We come under the influence 
of every pronounced expression of feeling, and if the circum- 
stances be favourable, reproduce it in ourselves, and follow 
out its determinations, the same as if it grew wholly out of 
ourselves. It is thus that we are affected by an orator, or an 
actor, or by the enthusiasm of a multitude. 

4. The following are the chief circumstances favour- 
able to Sympathy. 

(1) Our being disengaged at the time, or free from any 
intense occupation, or prepossession. The existing bent of 
the feelings and thoughts has always a certain hold or per- 
sistence, and is a force to be overcome by any new impression. 

(2) Our familiarity with the mode of feeling represented 
to us. Each one has certain predominant modes of feeling ; 
and these being the most readily excited, we can sympathize 
best with the persons affected by them. The mother easily 
feels for a mother. And obversely, where there is total dis- 
parity of nature or pursuits, there can be comparatively little 
sympathy. The timid man cannot enter into the composure 
of the resolute man ; the cold nature will not understand the 
pains of the ardent lover. 

(3) Our relation to the person determines our sympathy ; 
affection, esteem, reverence, attract our attention and observa- 
tion, and make us succumb to the influence of the manifested 
feelings. On the other hand, hatred or dislike removes us 
almost from the possibility of fellow-feeling ; the name ' an- 
tipathy ' is the derivative formed for the negation of sympathy. 
Still, it must be distinctly understood, that love is not indis- 
pensable to sympathy, properly so called ; and that aversion 
may not wholly extinguish it. 

(4) The energy or intensity of the language, tones, and ges- 
tures, necessarily determines the strength of the impression 
and the prompting to sympathy. 

(5) The clearness or distinctness of the expression is of 
great importance in inducing the state on the beholder. This 
is the advantage of persons gifted with the demonstrative 
constitution ; it is the talent of the actor and the elocutionist. 



VICARIOUS ACTION. 279 

and the groundwork of an interesting demeanour in society. 
When the remark is made, that to make others feel, we need 
only to feel ourselves, the power of adequate expression is also 
implied. 

(6) There is in some minds, more than in others, a suscep- 
tibility to the displays of other men^s feelings, as opposed to 
the self-engrossed and egotistic promptings. It is a branch 
or species of the receptive or susceptible temperament, the 
constitution more strongly endowed on the side of the senses, 
and less strongly in the centres of activity. To this natural 
differei^e we may add differences in education and the course 
of the habits, which may confirm the sympathetic impulses on 
the one hand, or the egotistic impulses on the other. 

5. The climax or completion of Sympathy is the de- 
terminatiou to act for another person exactly as for self. 

It is not enough that we become affected nearly as others 
are affected, through the medium of their manifestations of 
feeling, to which we surrender ourselves ; sympathy farther 
supposes that we act vicariously in removing the pain, or in 
promoting the pleasure, that we thus share in. The precise 
nature of this impulse, or its foundation in our mental system, 
is a matter of some subtlety. I have already (Contiguity, 
§ 13) expressed the opinion that it springs not from pure 
volition, but from the agency of the fixed idea. That mere 
volition is not the whole case, may be seen at once by con- 
sidering, that the short and easy method of getting rid of a 
sympathetic pain, is to turn away from the original, as we 
frequently do when we are unable or indisposed to render 
assistance. But the fact that we cannot always or easily do 
this, shows the persisting tendency of an idea once admitted, 
and the influence it has to work itself out into action, irre- 
spective of the operation of the will in fleeing pain and grasp- 
ing pleasure. The sight of another person enduring hunger, 
cold, fatigue, revives in us some recollection of these states, 
which are painful even in idea. We could, and often do, save 
ourselves this pain by at once averting the view, and looking 
out for another object of attention ; but the operation is one 
of some difficulty ; we feel that there is a power to seize and 
detain us, independent of the will, a power in the expression 
of pain to awaken our own ideas of pain ; and these ideas 
once awakened keep their hold, and prompt us to act for 
relieving the original subject, whose pain we have unwittingly 
borrowed or assumed. 



280 SYMPATHY. 

6. Men in general can sympathize with pleasure and 
pain as sitch ; but in the kinds and varieties of these, 
our sympathies are limited. 

The mere fact that any one is in pain awakens our sym- 
pathy; but, unless the causes and attendant circumstances 
also come home to us, the sympathy is neither persistent nor 
deep. Pains that have never afi&icted us, that we know 
nothing of, that are, in our opinion, justly or needlessly 
incurred, are dismissed from our thoughts as soon as we are 
informed of the facts. The tears shed by Alexander, at the 
end of his conquests, probably failed to stimulate on8 respon- 
sive drop in the most sensitive mind that ever heard his story. 

7. The Sympathy of others lends support to our own 
feelings and opinions. 

When any feeling belonging to ourselves is echoed by the 
expression of another person, we are supported and strength- 
ened by the coincidence. In the case of a pleasurable feeKng, 
the pleasure is increased ; self-complacency, tender affection, 
the sentiment of power, are all enhanced by the reflexion 
from others. It seems as if the cost of maintaining the plea- 
surable tone were diminished to us ; we can sustain it longer, 
and w4th augmented intensity. In the case of a painful 
feeling, as fear, remorse, impotence, the concurrence of another 
person has the same deepening effect ; to increase our pains, 
however, is not usually considered a part of sympathy. A 
sympathizing friend endeavours to counterwork depressing 
agencies. Still, the principle is the same throughout ; the 
expressed feelings of a second person are a power in our mind 
for the time ; they impress themselves upon us, more or less, 
according to the various circumstances and conditions that 
give effect to personal influence. The strength and earnestness 
of the language used, its expressiveness and grace, our affec- 
tion, admiration, or esteem of the sympathizer, and our own 
susceptibility to impressions from without, are the chief cir- 
cumstances that rule the effect. The sympathy of persons of 
commanding influence, and especially the concurring sym- 
pathies of a large number, may increase in a tenfold degree 
the pleasure of the original, or self-born feeling. 

8. Through the infection of sympathy, each individual 
is a power to mould the sentiments and views of others. 

This is merely stating the previous proposition in a form 
suited to make it a text for the influence of society at large 



PLEASURES OF THE SYMPATHIZER. 281 

on the opinions of its members. If all individualities were 
equally pronounced and equally balanced, the mutual action 
would result in an ' as you were ; ' but as there is usually a 
preponderance of certain sentiments, opinions, and views, the 
effect is to compress individuality into uniformity in most 
societies. Few persons have the strength of innate impulse 
to resist the feelings of a majority powerfully expressed; 
hence the uniformity, conservatism, and hereditary continu- 
ance of creeds, sentiments, opinions, that have once obtained 
an ascendancy. Even when men form independent j udgments, 
they abstain from expressing them, rather than renounce the 
support that social sympathy gives to the individual. 

9. Sympathy is, indirectly, a source of pleasure to the 
sympathizer. 

If the view here taken be correct, the disposition to sym- 
pathize with, and to act for, others does not mainly depend 
on the motives to the will — the pursuit of pleasure, and the 
revulsion from pain. Hence the sacrifice of self that it leads 
to is strictly and properly a sacrifice, a surrender or giving 
up of advantages without consideration of recompense or 
return. This position is indispensable to the vindication of 
disinterested action as a fact of the human mind. The direct, 
proper, immediate result of sympathy is loss, pain, sacrifice to 
the sympathizer. 

Indirectly, however, the giving of sympathy, as well as the 
receiving of it, may be a source of pleasure. What brings 
this about is reciprocity. The person benefited, or others in 
his stead, may make up, by sympathy and good of&ces re- 
turned, for all the sacrifice. And it is one of the remarkable 
facts of sympathy, the reason of which has been fully given, 
that the giving and receiving of good offices, and the inter- 
change of accordant feelings, make up a large source of plea- 
sure, and form one of the chief characteristics of civilized man. 
Even with considerably less than a full reciprocation, the 
sympathizing and benevolent man may be recompensed for 
his self-surrender ; but there is no evidence that 

in virtuous actions. 



The undertaker finds a full reward, 
Although, conferred upon unthankful men. 

What gives plausibility to this doctrine is that society at large 
labours to make up, by benefits and by approbation, for indi- 
vidual unthankfiilness or inability. Failing this world, the 
future life is considered as making good all deficiencies. 



282 SYMPA.THY. 

10. Sympathy cannot exist upon the extreme of self- 
abnegation ; the regard to the pleasures and pains of others 
is based on the regard to our own. 

Without pleasures and pains of our own, we are ignorant of 
the corresponding experience of our fellows. But this is not 
all. We must retain a sufficient amount of the self-regarding 
element to consider happiness an object worth striving for. 
We learn to value good things first for self; we then transfer 
this estimate to the objects of our sympathy. Should we 
cease to evince any interest in our own personal welfare, or 
treat our own happiness with indifierence, we practically lay 
down the position that happiness is nothing; the consequence 
being to render philanthropy absurd and unmeaniug. 

11. A wide range of Knowledge of human beings is 
requisite for large sympathies. 

The carrying out of sympathy, in a career of kind and 
beneficent action, wants a full knowledge of the sensitive points 
of others. To note and to keep in remembrance the likings 
and dislikings, the interests and the needs, of all persons that 
we are well disposed to, will occupy a considerable share of 
our thoughts and intelligence ; while uniformly to respect all 
these, in our conduct, involves sympathetic self-renunciation 
in a like eminent degree. 

12. Imitation, voluntary and involuntary, from its re- 
semblance to sympathy, is elucidated by a parallel expo- 
sition. 

In their tendencies and results, sympathy and imitation 
difier, but in their foundations they have much in common. 
There is an acquired power, one of the departments of our 
voluntary education, by which we move our own members to 
the lead of another person ; as when under a master or a fugle- 
man. The nearest approach to proper sympathy is a case of 
involuntary imitation, whereby we contract the gestures, tones, 
phraseology, and general demeanour of those around us. In 
all these points, the activity displayed by others is not merely 
a guide that we may avail ourselves of if we please, it is a power 
that we succumb to ; the child is assimilated to the manners 
prevailing around it, before it receives any express instruction. 

The conditions of imitation are (1) the Spontaneity of the 
active members, and (2) the Sense of the Effect, that is, of the 
conformity with the original. As regards the second condition, 
there is real pleasure in sensibly coinciding with movements 



CONDITIONS OF IMITATION. 283 

witnessed and tones heard ; and a certain painful feeling of 
discord, so long as tlie coincidence is not attained. In the case 
of children, who look up with deference and admiration to the 
superior powers of their elders, successful imitation has an 
intense charm ; it is to them an advance in the scale of being. 
Many of the amusements of children are imitative ; it is their 
delight to dramatize imposing avocations, to play the soldier, 
the judge, or the schoolmaster. 

There is also exemplified with reference to Imitation, the 
same antithesis or contrast of characters ; the susceptible or 
impressionable on the one hand, as against the self-moved, 
self- originating, on the other. The physical basis of the dis- 
tinction may be supposed to lie in the distinctive endowment 
of the sensory and motor centres ; at all events, the greater 
susceptibility to impressions received, represents the most 
general condition, alike of sympathy and of imitation. 

The imitator or Mimic must possess facility in the special 
organs employed, as the voice, the features, the gestures. This 
is a mode of spontaneity in those organs, with the farther gift 
of variety, flexibility, or compass. But still more requisite is 
the extreme susceptibility of sense to the effects to be imitated. 
The thorough and entire absorption of these effects by the 
mind is the guide to the employment of the active organs to 
reproduce them. The case is exactly parallel to artistic 
ability — a combination of flexibility of organ with sensibility 
to the special eflPect. Indeed, as regards a certain number of 
the Fine Arts, — Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, — the Artist's 
vocation is in great part to imitate. And although Imitation 
is supposed to bend to artistic purpose, yet one of the pleasing 
effects of art is the fidelity of the imitation itself ; and a con- 
siderable school of Art subordinafes ideal beauty to this 
exactness of reproduction. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

IDEAL EMOTION. 

1. The fact that Feeling or Emotion persists after the 
original stimulus is withdrawn, and is revived by purely 
mental forces, makes the life in the Ideal, 



284 IDEAL EMOTION. 

Mucli of our pleasure and pain is of this ideal kind ; being 
due not to a present stimulus, but to the remembrance of past 
states, either literally recalled, or shaped into imaginations 
and forecastings of the future* • Recollected approbation or 
censu.re, the pleasures of affection towards the absent, tho 
memory of a well spent life, are ideal feelings capable of great 
intensity. 

2. I. — The purely Physical organs and processes affect 
the self-subsistence of Emotion. 

Enough has been said on the organic processes (Sensations 
of Organic Life) to show tbeir influence on mental states. In 
the vigour of youth, of health, of nourishment, the mind is 
buoyant of its own accord. Joyous emotion is then persistent 
and strong ; ideal pleasure, the mere recollections of moments 
of delight, will possess a bigh intensity, by the support given 
to it, under the existing corporeal vigour. In this state of 
things, the excited brain, attracting to itself the abundant 
nourishment, maintains a high pitch of activity, and a like 
pitch of emotional fervour, Avhatever be the emotion suggested 
at the time. So, in holiday times, all ideal states of genial 
emotion — self-complacency, affection, the sense of power — are 
more than ordinarily intense and prolonged. 

We may add, likewise, as a purely corporeal cause, the 
agency of the stimulating drugs, which, by qu.ickening the 
brain, disposes a higher degree of emotion. Thus, alcohol 
stimulates botli the tender emotion, and the sense of power, 
to a notable and ludicrous degree. 

In states of corporeal elation, any pleasing emotion, sug- 
gested by its proper agent, burns brighter ; a compliment is 
more acutely felt. For tbe same reason, the recall of plea- 
sure by mental suggestion, would be more effective. 

In the powerful and active brain, mental manifestations in 
general are stronger and more continuing ; although there is, 
in most cases, a preference for some one mode of activity — 
Feeling, Will, or Intellect. 

3. II. — The Temperament may be specially adapted 
for Emotion. 

There is a physical foundation for this also, an endowment 
of Brain and other organs, — apparently the glandular or 
secreting organs ; but whether we speculate on the physical 
side or not, we must recognize the mental fact. Some persons 
maintain with ease a persistent flow of comparatively strong 



THE EMOTIONAL ENDOWMENT. 285 

emotion ; others can attain to this only for short intervals. 
The strength of the system inclines to Feeling, and away from 
Will and from Intellect ; such persons, unless largely endowed 
on the whole, are defective either in activity or in intellect. 
In them, however, emotion is fervid whether actual or ideal ; 
the recollection of pleasure counts as present pleasure. 

The emotional temperament may not make all emotions 
equally strong ; we must allow for specific differences. But 
when we find such leading emotions as Wonder, Tender 
Feeling, Self-complacency, Power, and all the feelings of re- 
bound, in exuberant fulness, we may express the fact by a 
general tendency, or temperament, for emotion. 

The Emotional Temperament is framed for pleasurable 
emotion ; it is a mode of strength, of elation, and buoyancy. 
It does not, therefore, magnify pain as it does pleasure ; on 
the contrary, it has resources to submerge, and to forget, the 
painful feelings. The memory for pains, the ideal life of pain, 
except in so far as it ministers to prudential forethought, and 
vicarious sj^mpathies, is a weakness, a defect of the constitu- 
tion ; showing itself in times of physical weakness, and con- 
quered by physical renovation. 

4 III.— -There may be constitutions endowed for Spe- 
cial Emotions. 

It is not to be assumed that the emotions all rise and fall 
together. Besides the general temperament for emotion, there 
are constitutions either endowed or educated for the separate 
emotions. To ascertam which of them may in this way be 
developed singly, is one use of an ultimate analysis of the 
feelings. 

Reverting to the . fundamental distinction between the 
ingoing or sensitive side of our nature, and the outgoing or 
active side, we have reason for believing that the two sides as 
a whole are unequally developed in individuals. IN^ow, as 
there are emotions belonging to the sensitive or passive side 
— Tenderness, for example — and emotions allied to the active 
side, as Power, we may expect specific developments corre- 
sponding to these emotions. A constitutional Tenderness is a 
common manifestation, even without supposing a large emo- 
tional tempera,ment on - the whole. The persons so endowed 
will be distinguished for cherishing affection ; and, when there 
are not enough of real objects, the feeling will be manifested 
in ideal forms. 

So the sentiment of Powder may be inordinately developed 



286 IDEAL EMOTION. 

in particular persons ; and being so, it will sustain itself, in 
the absence of real occasions, bj persistence in the ideal. 
The memory, the anticipation, the imagination of great power 
may give more delight than strong present gratifications of 
sense ; something of this is implied in the toils of ambition, in 
the ascetic self-denial that procures an ascendancy over the 
minds of men. 

The derived emotions, as Complacency, Irascibility, Love 
of Ejiowledge, will follow the strength of their constituent 
elements ; they also may attain great self-sustaining force, or 
ideal persistence. The feelings of Revenge, Antipathy, or 
Hatred, may burn with almost unremitted glow in a human 
being ; the real occasions of it are few, but the system is able 
to maintain the tremor over a large portion of the waking life. 

In cases of remarkable development of special emotions, 
cultivation or habit has usually been superadded to nature. 
Any strong natural bent becomes stronger by asserting itself, 
and acquiring the confirmation of habit ; besides which, edu- 
cation and influence from without may create a strong feeling 
out of one not strong originally. 

5. IV. — Of Mental agencies, in the support of ideal 
emotion, two may be signalized : — (1) The presence of 
some Kindred emotion, and (2) the Intellectual forces. 

(1) It is obvious that a present emotion, of an allied or 
congenial kind, must facilitate the blazing forth of an ideal 
feeling. The emotion of Religious reverence is fed and sup- 
ported by a ritual adapted to stimulate the constituent feelings 
— sublimity, fear, and tenderness. 

Present sensations of pleasure enable us to support dreams 
of ideal pleasure. The excitement of music inflames the ideal 
emotions and pleasures of the listener ; whether love, com- 
placency, glory, w^ealth, ambition : the mental tremor is trans- 
ferred to a new subject. 

(2) The chief intellectual force is Contiguity, or the pre- 
sence of objects strongly associated ^vith the feeling, as when 
the tender feeling towards the absent or the departed is main- 
tained by relics, tokens, or other suggestive circumstances. 

Our favourite emotions are kindled by the view of corre- 
sponding situations in the lives of other men. Biography is 
most charming when it brings before us careers and occupa- 
tions like our own. The young man entering political life is 
excited by the lives of statesmen : the retired politician can 
resuscitate his emotions from the same source. 



DISADVANTAGES OF PLEASUKES IN THE ACTUAL. 287 

An element of Belief is an addition to tbe power of an 
Ideal Feeling, This is the emotion of Hope, which is ideality 
coupled with belief. There are various ways of inducing 
belief, some being identical with causes already mentioned ; 
such as the various sources of mental elation. But belief 
may be aided by purely intellectual forces ; in which case it 
has still the same efficacy. 

The foregoing considerations bring before us certain 
collateral aids to feeling, whether actual or ideal. They 
enable us to account for the exceptions to the general rule, 
affirming the superiority of the present or actual, over the 
remembered or ideal. But before making that application, we 
must have before us the following additional circumstance. 

6. V. — A Feeling generated in the Actual is liable to 
be thwarted by the accompaniments of the situation. 

The reality of a success, or a step in life, is more powerful 
to excite joyous emotion than the dream or idea of it. The 
presence of a friend, or beloved object, is a happiness far 
beyond the thought of them in absence. Still, there are 
disadvantages incidental even to this highest form, of perfect 
fruition. The reality comes in the course of events, without 
reference to our preparation of mind for enjoying it to the full. 
And, what is more, it seldom comes in purity ; it is a concrete 
situation, and usually has some adjuncts of a detracting, not 
to say a painful, nature. The hero of a triumph is perhaps 
' old, and cannot enjoy it ; solitary, and cannot impart it.' 
Something is present to mar the splendour of every great 
success ; and even moderate good fortune may not be free 
from taint. The beloved object in actual presence is a con- 
crete human being, and not an angelic abstraction. 

iN'ow, in the Ideal, the case is altered. In the first place, 
we do not idealize unless mentally prepared for it ; we uncon- 
sciously choose our own time, and consult our emotional 
fitness ; in fact, it is because we are emotionally capable of 
indulging in a certain reverie of ambition, love, brilliant pros- 
pects, that we fall into it. 

And, in the next place, the Ideal drops out of view the 
disagreeable adjuncts of the reality. If we imagine the 
delight of attaining some object of pursuit, an office, a fortune, 
an alliance, we do not at the same time imagine the alloying 
drawbacks. The predominance of a feeling, by the law of its 
nature, excludes all disagreeables. Nothing but a severe 
discipline, partaking of the highest rigour of prudential fore- 



288 IDEAL EMOTION. 

thought, qualifies a man to body forth the concrete situation 
when he anticipates some great pleasure. Caesar toiled 
through many a weary march, in all weathers, to obtain his 
Triumph ; but he probably did not forecast the mixture of 
base elements with his joyful emotions on that day. 

It is not meant, that the detracting elements in every con- 
crete situation entirely do away with the delights of attaining 
what we struggle for. Moreover, the after recollection of 
these bespattered joys, in suitable moods, will again take the 
form of ideal purity. The married woman whose lot is for- 
tunate and temperament cheerful, will remember her wedding 
day without the worry, the heat, and the headache, which a 
faithful diary would have included in the narrative. 

7. The circumstances now given account for the play 
and predominance of Ideal Emotion. 

All other things being the same, a feeling in the Actual 
would surpass a feeling in the Ideal : the present enjoyment 
of a good bargain, a piece of music, an evening's conversation, 
is much stronger than the remembrance or imagination of 
that enjoyment. Still, in numerous instances, from the opera- 
tion of the causes enumerated, one feeling in the ideal may 
be far stronger than another in the actual. The emotions 
that predominate in the mind may be quite different from 
what the occasions of life would of themselves give support to. 

(1) In what is called day-dreaming, we have a large field 
of examples. Anything occurring to fire one of the strong 
emotions, in circumstances otherwise favourable, takes the 
attention and the thoughts away from other things to fasten 
them upon the objects of the feeling. The youth inflamed 
with the story of great achievements, and bold adventures, 
forgets his home and his father's house, and dreams of an ideal 
history of the same exciting character. The intellect minis- 
ters to the emotion, which without the creation of appropriate 
circumstances, would not be self-supporting. When love is 
the inflaming passion, there is the same obliviousness to the 
stimulation of things present ; the life is wholly ideal. 

This is one acceptation of the phrase ' pleasures of the 
Imagination.' They are the pleasures ideally sustained, to 
which the intellect supplies imagery and circumstances, and in 
that capacity is termed Imagination. The phrase has another 
meaning in Addison's celebrated Essays, namely, the Pleasures 
derived from works of Art, in which case ideality is only an 
incident. In looking at a picture or a statue, we have some- 



OUTLETS FOR IDEAL EMOTION. 289 

thing that may be called real, and present, although undoubtedly 
a principal design of works of art is to suggest ideal emotions* 
Ideality is an almost ' inseparable accident ' of Art. 

(2) In our Ethical appreciation of conduct we are influ- 
enced by ideal emotions. Disliking, as we do in practice, 
severe restraints, and ascetic exercises, we admire them in 
idea from the great fascination of the sentiment of power. 
The superiority to pleasure is a fine ideal of moral strength, 
and we consecrate it in theoretical morality, however little 
we may care to practise it. 

(3) The Religious sentiment implies a certain class of 
emotions incompletely gratified by the realities of the present 
life. Minds exactly adapted to what this world can supply — 
the * worldly-minded,' are the contrast of the ' religiously- 
minded.' The feelings of Sublimity, Love and Fear, in such 
strength as to transcend the limited sphere of the individual 
lot, are easily led into the regions of the unknown and the 
supernatural. 

8. Ideal Emotion is more or less connected with 
Desire. 

When a pleasure exists only as the faded memory of a pre- 
vious pleasure, there accompanies it the consciousness of a 
painful inferiority, with, a motive to the will to seek the full 
reality. This is Desire. If the reality is irrecQverable, the 
state is called Regret. Should the ideal feeling be so aided 
by vividness of recollection, or by collateral supports, as to 
approach the fulness of a real experience, we accept it as a 
sufficing enjoyment, and have no desire. In the excitement of 
conversation, we recall delightful memories with, such force as 
to fill up a satisfying cup of pleasure. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

JESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

1. The Esthetic Emotions — indicated by the names, 
Beauty, Sublimity, the Ludicrous — are a class of plea- 
surable feelings, sought to be gratified by the compositions 
of Fine Art. 



290 ^ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

In tlie perplexity attending the qnestion as to the Beautiful, 
a clue ought to be found in the compositions of Fine Art. 
Such compositions aim at pleasure, but of a peculiar kind, 
qualified by the eulogistic terms ' refined,' ' elevating,' ' en- 
nobling/ A contrast is made between the Agreeable and 
the Beautiful ; between Utility and Beauty ; Industry and 
Fine Art. 

2. The productions of Fine Art appear to be distin- 
guished by these characteristics : — (1) They have plea- 
sure for their immediate end ; (2) they have no disagree- 
able accompaniments ; (3) their enjoyment is not restricted 
to one or a few persons. 

(1) We assume, for the present, that the immediate end 
of Fine Art is Pleasure ; whereas the immediate end of eat- 
ing and drinking is to ward off pain, disease, death. 

(2) In Fine Art, everything disagreeable is meant to be 
excluded. This is one element of refinement ; the loathsome 
accompaniments of our sensual pleasures mar their purity. 

(3) The objects of Fine Art, and all objects called aesthetic, 
are such as may be enjoyed by a great number ; some indeed 
are open to the whole human race. They are exempt from 
the fatal taint of rivalry and contest attaching to other agree- 
ables ; they draw men together in mutual sympathy ; and are 
thus eminently social and humaniziug. A picture or a statue 
can be seen by millions ; a great poem reaches all that under- 
stand its language ; a fine melody jnay spread pleasure over 
the habitable globe. The sunset and the stars are veiled only 
from the prisoner and the blind. 

It will now be seen why many agreeable and valuable 
things, the ends of industry, can be distinguished from Fine 
Art. Food, clothing, houses, medicine, law, armies, are all 
useful, but not necessarily (although sometimes inciden- 
tally) beautiful. Even Science, although remarkable for the 
absence of monopoly (3), is not aesthetic ; its immediate end 
is not pleasure (1), although remotely it brings pleasures and 
avoids pains ; and it is too much associated with disagree- 
able toil in the acquisition (2). 

Wealth is obviously excluded from the aesthetic class. So 
also is the delight of Power, which is not only a monopolist 
pleasure, but one that implies, in others, the opposite state of 
impotence or dependence. Tlie pleasure of Aflection is also 
confined in its scope ; being, however, less confined, and less 
hostile to the interests of others, than power. 



SENSUAL ELEMENTS IN IDEA. 291 

3. The Eye and the Ear are the sesthetic senses. 

The Muscular feelings, the Organic sensibiHties, the sen- 
sations of Taste, Smell, and Touch, cannot be multiplied or 
extended like the effects of light and sound ; their objects are 
engrossed, if not consumed, by the present user. The con- 
sideration of monopoly would be decisive against the whole 
class, while many have other disqualifications. But pleasures 
awakened through the eye and the ear, in consequence of the 
diffusion of light and of sound, can be enjoyed by countlei^s 
numbers. There is a faint approach to this wide participation 
in the case of odours ; but the difference, although only in 
degree, is so great as to make a sufficient line of demarcation 
for our present purpose. 

4. The Muscular and the Sensual elements can be 
brought into Art by being presented in the idea. The 
same may be said of Wealth, Power, Dignity and 
Affection. 

A painter or a poet may depict a feast, and the picture 
may be viewed with pleasure. The disqualifying circum- 
stances are not present in ideal delights. So Wealth, Power, 
Dignity, Affection, as seen or imagined in others, are not ex- 
clusive. In point of fact, mankind derive much real pleasure 
from sympathizing with these objects. They constitute much 
of the interest of surrounding lite, and of the historical past ; 
and they are freely adopted into the compositions of the 
artist. 

It may be objected here, that to permit, without reserve, the 
ideal presentation of sensual delights, merely because of its being 
a diffused and not a monopolized pleasure, is to give to Art an 
unbounded licence of grossness; the very supposition proving 
that the domain of Art is not sufficiently circumscribed by the 
three facts above stated. The reply is, that the subjects of Fine 
Art are limited by considerations that are very various in different 
countries and times, and are hardly reducible to any rule. The 
pourtraying of sensual pleasures is objected to on moral and pru- 
dential grounds, as overstimulating men to pursue the reality; 
but there is no fixed line universally agreed upon. It is evi- 
dently within the spirit of Fine Art, as implied in the conditions 
above given, to cultivate directly and indirectly the sources of 
pleasure that all can share in, that provoke sympathy, instead of 
rivalry. Hence tales that inflame either the ambition or the sen- 
suality of the human m-ind, in their consequences, inspire what 
are termed the haser passions, properly definable as the passions 
involving rivalry and hostility, because their objects are such as 
the few enjoy, to the exclusion of the many. 



292 iESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

It is in the same spirit that Art is considered to occupy its 
proper province when inspiring sympathy and benign emotions, 
and lulling angry and hateful passion. Hence it allies itself with 
Morality, being in fact almost identified with the persuasive part 
of Morality, as opposed to the obligatory or compulsory sanction. 

5. The source of Beauty is not to be sought in any 
single quality, but in a Circle of Effects. 

The search after some common property applicable to all 
things named beautiful is now abandoned. Every theorist 
admits a plurality of causes. The common attribute resides 
only in the emotion, and even that may vary considerably 
without passing the limits of the name. 

Among terms used to express aBsthetic qualities — Sub- 
limity, Beauty, Grace, Picturesqueness, Harmony, Melody, 
Proportion, Keeping, Order, Fitness, Unity, Wit, and Hu- 
mour — there are a number of synonyms ; but a real distinction 
is marked by the names Sublimity, Beauty, the Ludicrous 
(with Humour). The most comprehensive of the three 
designations is Beauty ; the problem of what are the charac- 
teristics of Fine Art is chiefly attached to it. Sublimity and 
the Ludicrous, which also enter into aesthetic compositions, 
have certain distinctive features, and are considered apart. 

The objects described in these various phrases may occur 
spontaneously in nature ; as, for example, wild and impres- 
sive scenery : they may spring up incidental to other efiects, 
as when the contests of nations, carried on for self-protection 
or supremacy, produce grand and stirring spectacles to the 
unconcerned beholders, and to after ages ; or when the struc- 
tures, designed for pure utility, rise to grandeur from their mere 
magnitude, as a ship of war, or a vast building : and lastly, 
they may be expressly produced for their own sake, in which 
case we have a class of Fine Arts, a profession of Artists, and 
an education of people generally in elegance and Taste. 

6. The objects and emotions of Fine Art, so far as 
brought out in the previous exposition of the mind, may 
be resumed as follows : — 

L — The simple sensations of the Ear and the Eye. 

The pleasurable sensations of sound and of sight come 
within the domain of Fine Art. This view, maintained by 
Knight in his Essay on Taste, is strongly opposed by Jeffrey, 
who denies that there are any intrinsic pleasures due to these 
sensations. On such a point, the appeal must be made to the 



SENSE AND INTELLECT. 293 

experience of mankind. We have, in discussing these senses, 
classified and enumerated their sensations, affirming the in- 
trinsically pleasurable character of a large part of them ; as, 
for example, voluminous sounds, waxing and waning sounds, 
mere light, colour, and lustre. If these are admitted to be 
pleasurable for their own sake (and not for the sake of certain 
suggested emotions), their pretensions to be employed in Art 
are based on their complying with the criteria of the Artistic 
emotions. The pleasures arising from them are sometimes 
called sensuous, as contrasted with the narrow or monopolist 
pleasures of the other senses, called sensilal, 

7. II. — Intellect, co-operating with the Senses, fur- 
nishes materials of Art. 

Muscular exercise and repose seen or contemplated, as in 
the spectacle of games, would be regarded as an aesthetic 
pleasure. The pleasures of the monopolist senses, when pre- 
sented in idea by the painter or the poet, attain the refinement 
of art. 

The sensations of bodily health and vigour are in them- 
selves exclusive and sensual ; in their idea, as when we con- 
template the outward marks of health, they are artistic. The 
actual enjoyment of warmth or coolness is sensual, the sug- 
gestion of these in a picture is refined and artistical. Pleasant 
odours are frequently described in poetry. The feeling of soft 
warm touch ideally excited is a feeling of art. 

The intervention of language (an intellectual device) is a 
means of overcoming the disagreeable adjuncts of our senses, 
and of rendering the sensual pleasures less adverse to artistic 
handling. There are ways of alluding to the ofiensive pro- 
cesses of organic life, that deprive them of half their evil, by 
removing all their grossness. This is the purpose of the 
Rhetorical figure, called Euphemism ; it is a mode of refine- 
ment describable as the purification of pleasure. 

8. III. — The Special Emotions, either in their 
actuality, or in idea, enter largely into Fine Arts. 

This has been already pointed out. The first class, the 
Emotions of Relativity — Wonder, Surprise, I^^ovelty — are 
sought in Art, as in other pleasures not artistic. The emotion 
of Fear is of itself painful, and would be excluded by the 
artist, but for its incidentally contributing to artistic pleasure. 
Tender emotion in actuality is too narrow, but in idea it is 
very largely made use of as a pleasure of Art ; the objects that 



294 ^.STIIETIC EMOTIONS. 

inspire tender emotion, that rouse ideal affection, are nniver- 
sally denominated beautiful. According to Burke, tenderness 
is almost identified with beauty : and in the Association 
theory of Alison and Jeffrey, the power to suggest the warm 
human affections is placed above all other causes ; the feminine 
exterior being considered beautiful as bodying forth the graces 
and amiability of the character. The egotistic group of 
emotions — Self-complacency, Love of Approbation, Power, 
Irascibility — even ideally viewed, are adverse to the spirit of 
Art, unless we can sympathize with the occasions of them, 
in which case their manifestation gives us pleasure. The 
situation of Pursuit, in idea, is eminently artistic ; plot- 
interest enters into most kinds of poetry. The Emotions of 
Intellect would be aesthetic, from their broad and liberalizing 
character, and from their not containing, either directly or 
indirectly, the element of rivalry ; but the province of Truth 
and Science, in which they appear, is, for the most part, 
too arduous to be a source of unmixed pleasure. 

9. IV. — Hakmony is an especial source of artistic 
pleasure. 

It was noted (Classification of Emotions, § 2), that 
emotional states are produced from sensations, through Har- 
mony and Conflict j Harmony giving pleasure, and Conflict 
pain. It is in the works of Fine Art, that the pleasures of 
Harmony are most extensively cultivated. The illustration 
of this position in detail would cover a large part of the 
field of Esthetics. The law that determines the pleasure of 
Plarmony and the pain of Conflict, is a branch or application 
of a higher law, the law of Self- conservation ; in harmony, we 
may suppose that the nerve currents are mutually supporting ; 
in conflict, that there is opposition and loss of power. 

10. The pleasurable Sensations of Sound, and their 
Harmonies, constitute a department of Fine Art. 

In Music, we have, first, all the pleasing varieties of simple 
^sound — sweet sounds, voluminous sounds, waxing and waning 
sounds ; and next, the combinations of sound in Melody and 
in Harmony, according to laws of proportion, now arith- 
metically determined. 

The musical note is a sound of uniform Pitch, or of a con- 
stant number of beats per second. In this uniformity, there is 
a source of pleasure ; it contains the element of harmony. The 
regularity of the beats is more agreeable than irregularity. 



-r HARMONY. 295 

The same fact enters into a musical air or melody, and re- 
appears in the harmonies and proportions of visible objects. 

Harmony is the concurrence of two or more sounds re- 
lated, as to number of vibrations and beats, in a simple ratio. 
The Octave is the most perfect harmony, the numbers being as 
two to one. In this concord, every second beat of the higher 
note coincides with every beat of the lower ; and, between 
these coinciding and double beats, there is a solitary beat. The 
intervals, therefore, are equal, but the beats unequal ; a double 
and a single alternating. This is the first departure from 
uniformity towards variety, and the effect is more acceptable, 
probably on that ground. In the concord of a Fifth, every 
third vibration of the higher note coincides with every second 
of the lower ; and between these two coincidences, there are 
three single beats (two in one note and one in the other) at 
intervals varying as 1, ^, J, 1 respectively. In the concord of 
a Fourth, every fourth vibration of the higher note coincides 
with every third of the lower ; and between the two coinci- 
dences, there are five single beats (three in one note and two 
in the other), at intervals of 1, J, f, f, ^, 1. In these two 
last mentioned concords, there is a mixture of different sets 
of equal intervals : the coinciding or double beat, and the 
single beats recurring in the same order of unequal but pro- 
portioned intervals. 

The element of Time, in music, is probably the same effect 
on the larger scale. Besides allowing harmonies to be 
arranged, the observance of time in the succession of notes is 
a kind of concord between what is past and what is to come 
— a harmony of expectation — and the violation of it is a jar or 
discord, and is painful according to the sensitiveness of the ear. 

The varying Emphasis of music, properly regulated, adds 
to the pleasure, on the law of Relativity, or alternation and 
remission, as in light and shade. According as sounds are 
sharp and loud, is it necessary that they be remitted and varied. 
The gradations of pitch have respect to variety, as well as to 
harmony and melody. Since a work of Art aims at giving plea- 
sure to the utmost, it courts variety in every form, only not 
to produce discords, or to miss harmonies. 

Cadence is an effect common to music and to speaking, 
and refers, in the first instance, to the close or fall of the 
melody. An abrupt termination is unpleasing, partly from 
breach of expectation, and partly because, on the principle of 
relativity, the sudden cessation of a stimulus gives a shock 
analogous to the sudden commencement. Cadence farther 



296 AESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

includes, by a natural extension, the variation of emphasis and 
pitch ; the gentle commencement, the gradual rise to a height 
or climax, and the ending fall ; there being a series of lesser 
rises and falls throughout the piece. Alternation or variety is 
the sole guide to this effect, which enters alike into musical 
performance, and into oratorical pronunciation. 

There is, in Music, a superadded effect, namely, the imita- 
tion of emotional expression, by which various emotions may 
be directly stimulated, as Tenderness, Devotion, the Exulta- 
tion of Power. 

This imitation is effected by varying the sounds them- 
selves, but still more through the pace, or comparative 
rapidity and emphasis of the notes ; the very same rule go- 
verning music and poetry. 

11. The pleasurable Sensations of Sight, with their 
Harmonies, are a distinct source of the Beautiful in Art. 

Mere light is pleasant in proper limits and alternation ; 
whence the art of Light and Shade. The employment of 
colour is regulated by harmony ; there is a mutual balance of 
the colours, according to the proportions of the solar spec- 
trum. E-ed, yellow, and blue are accounted the primary 
cololirs. The eye, exposed for some time to one colour, as 
red, desiderates some other colour, and is most of all de- 
lighted with the complementary colour ; thus red harmonizes 
with green (formed out of yellow and blue) ; blue with orange 
or gold (a mixture of red and yellow) ; yellow with violet 
(red and blue). Colour Harmony is the maximum of stimu- 
lation of the optic nerve, with the minimum of exhaustion. 

The influence of Lustre has been already described. It is 
the outburst of sparkles of light on a ground of comparative 
sombreness. 

In the muscular susceptibility of sight, the elementary 
pleasurable effect is the waxing and waning motion, and the 
Curve Line, the two being in character the same. This has 
always been a conspicuous part of the beauty of Form. 

The Harmonies of Sight are exemplified by movements, 
as the Dance, where also there is observance of Time. 

In still life, there are harmonies of Space. In arranging 
objects in a row, equality of intervals has a pleasing effect, on 
the principle already quoted. The equality may be combined 
with variet}^, by introducing larger breaks, also at equal in- 
tervals, which gives subordinate gradations, with a unity in 
the whole. 



HARMONIES OF SPACE. . 297 

The subdivision of lines or spaces should be in simple 
proportions, as halves, thirds, fourths ; these simple ratios 
constitute the beauty of oblong and triangular figures, and 
the proportions of rooms and buildings. An oblong, haying 
the length three times the width, is more agreeable to the 
observant eye than if no ratio were discernible. A room, 
whose length, width, and height follow simple ratios, as 4 to 
3, or 3 to 2, is well proportioned. Equality of angles, in 
angular figures, is preferable to inequality ; and the angles of 
30°, 45°, or 60°, being simple divisions of the quadrant, are 
more agreeable than angles that are incommensurate. 

In Straight Forms, the laws of proportion determine 
beauty, subject to considerations of Eitness, to be presently 
noticed. In Curved Forms, the primitive charm of the curve 
line may be combined with proportions and with pleasing 
associations. The circle, and the oval, contain an element of 
proportion. Besides these effects, there is in the curved out- 
line the suggestion of ease and abandon. The mechanical 
members of the human body, being chiefly levers fixed at the 
end, naturally describe curves with their extremities ; it is 
only after a painful discipline that they can draw straight 
lines. Hence straightness, in certain circumstances, is sug- 
gestive of restraint, and curvature of ease. The beauty of the 
straight form, when it is beautiful, will arise partly from 
proportion, and partly from the obvious utility of order in 
arrangement. The straight furrows of a ploughed field are 
agreeable, if our mind is occupied with the ploughman's 
labour, not on the side of its arduousness, but on the side of 
its power and skill. 

In the dimension of up and down, form or outline is inter- 
woven with the paramount 'consideration of sustaining things 
against the force of.gravity ; in other words, we have to deal 
with Pressure and Support. The evils of loss of support are 
so numerous, so pressing, so serious, that adequacy on this 
score is one of our incessant solicitudes, a real ' affection of 
Fear.' The mere suggestion of a possible catastrophe from 
weakness of support is a painful idea ; and the existence of 
such pains renders the appearances of adequate support a kind 
of joyful relief. When a great mass has to be supported, we 
gaze with satisfaction upon the firmness of the foundations, 
the width of the base, the tenacity of the columns or other 
supports. The pyramid and the well-buttressed wall are 
objects that we can think of with comfort, when more than 
usually oppressed with examples of flimsiness and insecurity. 



298 iESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

Sufficiency of apparent support does not exhaust the in- 
terest of the counteraction of gravity. IS'ext to doing work 
adequately, is doing it with the least expenditure of means or 
labour. It gratifies the feeling of Power, and is an aspect of 
the Sublime, to see great effects produced with the appearance 
of Ease on the part of the agent. The pyramid, although 
satisfactory in one point of view, is apt to appear as gross, 
heavy, clumsy, if used merely to support its own mass. 
We obtain a superadded gratification, when we see an object 
raised aloft without such expenditure of material and such 
width of base. In these respects, the obelisk is a refinement 
on the pyramid. The column is a still greater refinement ; for 
in a row of columns, we discern a satisfactory, and yet light, 
support to a superincumbent mass. Another modification of 
support for smaller heights is the pilaster, which is diminished 
near the bottom, and also near the top, retaining breadth of 
base, and a resisting thickness in the middle ; there being an 
opportunity also for the curved outline. Yases, drinking 
cups, wine glasses, and other table ware, combine adequate with 
easy support, while availing themselves of proportions and the 
curved form. The tree, with its spreading roots and ample 
base, its slender and yet adequate stem, supporting a volu- 
minous foliage, is an example of support tbat never ceases to . 
afibrd gratification. 

The beauty of Symmetry is in some cases due to propor- 
tion, and in others to adequacy of support. When the two 
sides of a human face are not alike, there is a breach of pro- 
portion ; a wasted limb is both disproportioned and inadequate 
for support. 

The beauties of Visible Movement might be expanded in 
a similar detail. The curve movement is a beauty — that is, a 
refined pleasure in itself. Upward movements, being against 
gravity, suggest power; so also rapid projectile movements, 
as the cannon ball. The spectacle of a dance combines a 
number of effects already recognized. 

12. Ill the Fine Arts, there are Complex Harmonies; 
as when Sound, Colour, Movement, Form, are in keeping 
with each other, and with the intention of the work as a 
whole. 

There is no intrinsic suitability of a sound to a colour, or 
of a colour to a form ; a voluminous sound is not more in har- 
mony with red than with blue. But the moods of mind 
generated by sensation may have a certain community ; at 



COMPLEX HARMONIES. 299 

one time, the prevailing key may be pungent excitement, at 
another time, voluminous pleasure. Through this community, 
glare and sparkle chime in with rapid movements ; sombre 
light and shade with slow movements. There is the same 
adaptation of musical measures to the state of the mind as 
determined by spectacle, or by emotion. The dying fall in 
music harmonizes with the waxing and waning movement, or 
the curved line. 

13. A wide department of the Beautiful is expressed 
under the Fitness of means to ends. 

This has been already brought into view in the discussion 
of Support, which is the fitness of machinery to a mechanical 
end, namely, the counteraction of gravity. On account of the 
pleasure thus obtained, we erect structures that have no other 
end than to suggest fitness. In all kinds of mechanism, where 
power is exerted to produce results, there is a like feeling. 
When anything is to be done, we are sympathetically pained 
in discovering the means to be inadequate ; and being often 
subject to such pains, there is a grateful reaction in contem- 
plating a work where the power is ample for its end. There 
is a farther satisfaction in seeing ends accomplished with the 
least expenditure of means. The appearances of great labour, 
eSbrt, or difficulty, are unpleasant ; a man bending beneath a 
load, a horse sticking in the mud, give a depressing idea of 
weakness. The noise of friction in machinery, and the sight 
of roughness and rust, suggestive of friction, are calculated to 
pain our sensibilities. On the other hand, all the indications 
of comparative ease in the performance of work, even although 
illusory, are a grateful rebound of sympathetic power. The 
gentle breeze moving a ship, or a windmill, gives us this 
illusory gratification. Clean, bright tools are associated with 
ease and efficiency in doing their work. 

The beauties of Order may consist of mere proportion, but 
they are still oftener the efiects conducive to the attainment 
of ends. In a well kept house, or shop, everything is in its 
place ; there are fit tools and facilities for whatever is to be 
done ; all the appearances are suggestive of such fitness and 
facility : although it may happen that the reality and the 
appearance are opposed. The arts of cleanliness, in the first 
instance, are aimed at the removal of things injurious and 
loathsome ; going a step farther, they impart whiteness of sur- 
face, lustre and brilliancy, which are gesthetic qualities. The 
neat, tidy, and trim, may be referred to Order; even when going 



300 iESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

beyond what is necessary for useful ends, neatness suggests 
a mind alive to tlie orderly, which is a means to the useful. 

14. The feeling of Unity in Diversity, considered as a 
part of Beauty, owes its charm principally to Order, and 
to Intellectual relief. 

The mind, overburdened with a multitude of details, seeks 
relief in order and in unity of plan. The successful reduction 
of a distracting host of particulars to simple and general 
heads, as happens through great discoveries of generalization, 
gives the thrill of a great intellectual relief. In all works 
abounding in detail, we crave for some comprehensive plan, 
enabling us to seize the whole, while we survey the parts. A 
poem, a history, a dissertation in science, a lecture, needs to 
have a discernible principle of order or unity throughout. 

15. It is a principle of Art, founded in the nature of 
the feelings, to leave something to Desire. 

To leave something to the Imagination is better than to 
express the whole. What is merely suggested is conceived in 
an ideal form and colouring. Thus, in a landscape, a winding 
river disappears from the sight ; the distant hazy mountains 
are realms for the fancy to play in. Breaks are left in a 
story, such as the reader may fill up. The proportioning and 
adjusting of the expressed and the suggested, would depend 
on the principles of Ideal Emotion. 

16. Under so great a variety of exciting causes, a cer- 
tain latitude must be allowed in characterizing the feeling 
of Beauty. 

Experience proves, that all these different effects are not 
merely modes of pleasure, but congenial in their mixture. 
The common character of the emotion may be expressed 
as refined pleasure. Even when not great in degree, it has 
the advantage of durability. The many confluent streams of 
pleasure run into a general ocean of the pleasurable, where 
their specialities are scarcely distinguishable. 

When Beauty is spoken of in a narrow sense, as excluding 
Sublimity, it points to the more purely passive delights, 
exemplified in sensuous pleasures, harmonies, tender emotion. 
Burke's identification of delicacy (as in the drooping flower) 
with beauty, hits the passive delights, as contrasted with the 
active. The boundary is not a rigid one. Much of the 
beauty of fitness appeals to the sentiment of power, the basis 
of the Sublime. 



THE SUBLIME. 301 

• 17. The Sublime is the sympathetic sentiment of 
superior Power in its highest -degrees. 

The objects of subhmity are, for the most part, such 
aspects and appearances as betoken great might, energy, or 
vastness, and are thereby capable of imparting sympathetically 
the elation of superior power. 

Human m.ight or energy is the literal sublime, and the 
point of departure for sublimity in other things. Superior 
bodily strength, as indicated either by the size and form of 
the members, or by actual exertion, lifts the beholder's mind 
above its ordinary level, and imparts a certain degree of 
grateful elation. The same may be said of other modes of 
superior power. Greatness of intellect, as in the master 
minds of the human race, is interesting as an object of mere 
contemplation. Moral energy, as heroic endarance and self- 
denial, has inspired admiration in all tim.es. Great practical 
skill in the various departments of active life awakens the 
same admiring and elevating sentiment. The spectacle of 
power in organized multitudes is still more imposing, and 
reflects an undue importance on the one man that happens to 
be at the head. 

The Snblime of Inanimate things is derived or borrowed, 
by a fictitious process, from the literal sublimity of beings 
formed like ourselves. So great is our enjoyment of the 
feeling of superior power, that we take delight in referring 
the forces of dead matter to a conscious mind ; in other words, 
personification. Starting from some known estimate, as in 
the physical force of an average man to move one hundred- 
weight, we have a kind of sympathetic elation in seeing many 
hundredweights raised with ease by water or steam power. 
When the spectacle is common, we become indiflerent to it; 
and we are re-awakened only by something different or 
superior. 

The Sublime of Support is of frequent occarrence. Tt 
applies to the raising of heavy weights ; to the upward pro- 
jection of bodies ; and to the sustaining of great masses at an 
elevation above the surface, as piles of building, and mou.n- 
tains. All these effects imply great upheaving power, equiva- 
lent to human force many times multiplied. The more upright 
or precipitous the elevated mass, the greater the appaient 
power put forth in sustaining it. Sublimity is thus con- 
nected with height ; from which it derives its name. 

The Sublime of Active Energy, or power visibly at work, 
is seen in thunder, wind, waves, cataracts, rivers, Volcanoes, 
15 



302 iiilSTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

steam power, ordnance, accumulated animal or human force. 
Movement in the actual is more impressive than the quiescent 
results of movement. 

The Sublime of Space, or of Largeness of Dimensions, is 
partly owing to the circumstance that objects of great power 
are correspondingly large. The ocean is voluminous. As 
regards empty space, great extent implies energy to traverse 
it, or mass to occupy it. 

An Extended Prospect is sublime from the number of its 
contained objects, each possessing a certain element of im- 
pressiveness. There is also a sense of intellectual range or 
grasp, as compared with the confinementof a narrow spot; which 
is one of the many modes of the elation of superior power. 

The Great in Time or Duration is Sublime ; not mere 
duration in the abstract, but the sequence of known trans- 
actions and events, stretching over many ages. In this too, 
there is an intellectual elevation, and a form of superior 
might. The far past, and the distant future, to a mind that 
can people the interval, arouse the feeling of the sublime. 
The relics of ancient nations, the antiquities of the geological 
ages, inspire a sublimity, tinged with melancholy and pathos, 
from the retrospect of desolation and decay. 

There is an incidental connexion of the Sublime with 
Terror. Properly, the two states of mind are hostile and 
mutually destructive ; the one raises the feeling of energy, 
the other depresses it. In so far as a sublime object gives us 
the sense of personal, or of sympathetic danger, its sublimity 
is frustrated. The two effects were confounded by Burke in 
his Theory of the Sublime. 

18. The foregoing principles might be tested and exem- 
plified by a survey of Natural Objects. It is sufficient to 
advert to Human Beauty. 

The Mineral world has its sesthetic qualities, chiefly colour 
and form. In Vegetable nature, there are numerous effects, 
partly of colour and form, partly of support, and partly of 
quasi-human expression. The beauties of scenery — of moun- 
tains, rocks, valleys, rivers, plains — are referable, without 
much difficulty, to the constituent elements above indicated. 
The Animal Kingdom contains many objects of aesthetic in- 
terest, as well as many of an opposite kind. The approach 
to humanity is the special circumstance ; the suggestion of 
feeling is no longer fictitious, but real 5 and the interest is little 
removed from the human. 



BEAUTY OF NATURAL OBJECTS. 303 

As regards Humanity, there are first the graces of the 
Exterior. The effects of colour and brilliancy, — in the skin, 
the eyes, the hair, the teeth, — are intrinsically agreeable. The 
Figure is more contested. The proportions of the whole are 
suited for sufficient, and yet light support ; while the modifi- 
cations of foot and limb are adapted for forward movement. 
The curvature of the outline is continuous and varying (in the 
ideal feminine figure), passing through points of contrary 
flexure^ from convex to concave, and, again resuming the 
convex. 

The beauties of the Head and Face involve the most difficult 
considerations. In so far as concerns the symmetry of the 
two halves, and the curved outlines, we have intelligible 
grounds ; but the proportional sizes of the face, features, and 
head, are determined by no general principles. We must 
here accept from our customary specimens a certain standard 
of mouth, nose, forehead, &c., and refine upon that by bring- 
ing in laws of proportion, curvature, and the susceptibility to 
agreeable expression. This is the only tenable mean between 
the unguarded theory of Buf&er and Reynolds, who referred 
all beauty to custom, and the attempts to explain everything 
by proportion and expression. A Negro or a Mongol sculptor 
would be not only justified, but necessitated, to assume an 
ideal type different from the Greek, although he might still 
introduce general eesthetic considerations, that is to say, pro- 
portions, curves, fitness, and expression, so as not to be the 
imitator of any one actual specimen, or even of the most com- 
mon variety. The same applies to the beauties seen in 
animals. The prevailing features of the species are assumed, 
and certain considerations either of universal beauty, or of 
capricious adoption, are allowed to have weight in determin- 
ing the most beautiful type. 

The graces of Movement, as such, are quite explicable. In 
the primitive effects of movement are included the curve line 
and the * dying fall.' The movements, as well as attitudes, of 
a graceful form, can hardly be other than graceful. 

The suggestion of Tender and of Sexual Feeling is con- 
nected with Colour, with Form, and with Movements. The 
tints of the face and of the surface generally are associated with 
the soft warm contact. By a link of connexion, partly natural 
(the result of a general law), the rounded and tapering form 
is suggestive of the living embrace ; lending an interest to the 
hard cold marble of the statuary. The movements that excite 
the same train of feelings are known and obvious. 



304 ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

On all theories of Beauty, mncli is allowed to tlie Ex- 
pression of pleasing states of mind. The amiable expression 
is always cheering to behold ; and a cast of features per- 
manently suited to this expression is beautiful. 

When we inquire into what constitutes beauty in the 
human character, or the mental attributes of a human being, we 
find that the foundation of the whole is self-surrender. This 
is apparent in the virtues (also called graces) of generosity, 
affection, and modesty or humility; all which imply that the 
ia dividual gives up a portion of self for others. 

THEORIES OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 

It is usual to carry back the history of the question of Beauty 
to Sokrates and Plato. 

The question of Beauty is shortly touched upon, in one of the 
Sokratic conversations reported in the Memorabilia. Sokrates 
holds that the beautiful and the good, or useful, are the same ; a 
dung-basket, if it answers its end, may be a beautiful thing, 
while a golden shield, not well formed for use, is an ugly thing. 
{MemoraUUa III. 8.) 

In the Dialogue of Plato, called Hippias Major ^ there is a dis- 
cussion on the Beautiful. Various theories are propounded, and 
to all of them objections, supposed insuperable, are made by the 
Platonic Sokrates. First, The Suitable, or the Becoming, is said 
to constitute beauty. To this, it is objected, that the suitable, or 
becoming, is what causes objects to appear beautiful, not what 
makes them really beautiful. Secondly, The Useful or Profit- 
able. Much is to be said for this view, but on close inspection 
(says Sokrates) it will not hold. Thus Power, which when em- 
ployed for useful purposes is beautiful, may be employed for evil, 
and cannot be beautiful. If you qualify by saying — Power em- 
ployed for good — you make the good and the beautiful cause and 
effect, and therefore different things, which is absurd. Thirdly, 
The beautiful is a particular variety of the Agreeable or Pleasur- 
able, being all those things that give pleasure through sight and 
hearing. Sokrates, however, demands why these pleasures should 
be so much distinguished over other pleasures. He is not satisfied 
to be told that they are the most innocuous and the best ; an 
answer that (he says) leads to the same absurdity as before ; the 
beautiful being made the cause, the good the effect ; and the two 
thereby accounted different things. 

Turning now to the Repuhlic (Book YII.), we find a mode of 
viewing the question, more in accordance with the mystic and 
transcendental side of Plato. Speaking of the science of Astro- 
nomy, he says (in summary) : — ' The heavenly bodies are the 
most heaidiful of all visible bodies, and the most regular of all 
visible movements, approximating most nearly, though still with 
a long interval of inferiority, to the ideal figures and movements 



THEORIES OF BEAUTY — PLATO. 305 

of genuine and self-existent Forms — quickness, slowness, number, 
figure, &c., as they are in themselves, not visible to the eye, but con- 
ceivable only by reason and intellect. The movements of the 
.heavenly bodies are exemplifications, approaching nearest to the 
perfection of these ideal movements, but still falling greatly short 
of them. They are like visible circles or triangles drawn by some 
very exact artist ; which, however beautiful as works of art, are 
far from answering to the conditions of the idea and its definition, 
and from exhibiting exact equality and proportion.' All this is 
in accordance with the Ideal theory of Plato. Ideas are not only 
the pre-existing causes of real things, but the highest and most 
delightful objects of human contemplation. 

It is remarked by Mr. Grote that the Greek to koXov includes, 
in addition to the ordinary meanings of beauty, the fine, the hon- 
ourahle, the exalted. 

Aristotle alludes to the nature of Beauty, in connexion with 
Poetry. The beauty of animals, or of any objects composed of 
parts, involves two things — orderly arrangement and a certain 
magnitude. Hence an animal may be too small to be beautiful ; 
or it may be too large, when it cannot be surveyed as a whole. 
The object should have such magnitude as to be easily seen. 

Among the lost writings of St. Atjgustin was a large treatise 
on Beauty ; and it appeal's from incidental allusions in the extant 
works, that he laid especial stress on Unity, or the relation of the 
parts of a work to the whole, in one comprehensive and har- 
monious design. 

In Shaetesbury's Characteristics, the Beautiful and the Good 
are combined in one lofty conception, and a certain internal sense 
(the Moral Sense) is assumed as perceiving both alike. 

In the celebrated Essays of Addiso:n', on The Pleasures of the 
Imagination, the sesthetic effects are resolved into Beauty, 
Sublimity, and Novelty ; but scarcely any attempt is made to pur- 
sue the analysis of either Beauty or Sublimity. 

Htjtcheso]S' maintains the existence of a distinct internal sense 
for the perception of Beauty. He still, however, made a resolu- 
tion of the qualities of beautiful objects into combinations of 
variety with uniformity ; but did not make the obvious inference, 
that the sense of beauty is, therefore, a sense of variety with uni- 
formity. He discarded the considerations of fitness, or the second- 
ary aptitudes of these qualities. 

In the article 'Beau,' in th.Q ^T&nci^OL EncyclopSdie, the author, 
Diderot, announced the doctrine that * Beauty consists in the 
perception of Eelations.' This is admitted on all hands to be too 
wide and too vague. 

Pere Bueeier. Pere Buffier identified Beauty with the type 
of each species ; it is the form at once most common and most 
rare. Among faces, there is but one beautiful form, the others 
being not beautiful. But while only a few are modelled after the 
ugly forms, a great many are modelled after the beautiful form. 
Beauty, while itself rare, is the model to which the greater num- 



306 ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

ber conform. Among fifty noses we may find ten well-made, all 
after the same model ; whereas out of the other forty, not above 
two or three will be found of the same shape. Handsome people 
have a greater family likeness than ugly people. A monster is what 
has least in common with the human figure ; beauty is what has 
most in common. The true proportion of parts is the most com- 
mon proportion. From this it might be concluded that beauty is 
simply what we are most accustomed to, and therefore arbitrary 
— a conclusion that Buffier does not dispute. At least, hitherto, 
he thinks, the essential character of beauty has not been discovered. 
If there be a true beauty, it must be that which is most common 
to all nations. 

Sir Joshua Eeynolds, in his theory of beauty, has followed 
Pere Bufiier. The deformed is what is uncommon ; beauty is 
what is above ' all singular forms, local customs, particularities, 
and details of every kind.' He gives, however, a turn to the doc- 
trine, in meeting the objection that there are distinct forms of 
beauty in the same species, as those represented by the Hercules, 
the Gladiator, and the Apollo. He observes that each of these is 
a representation, not of an individual, but of a class, within the 
class man, and is the central idea of its class. Not any one gives 
the ideal beauty of the species man ; ' for perfect beauty in any 
species must combine all the characters which are beautiful in 
that species.' 

Hogarth, in his Aiialy sis of Beauty, enumerates six elements 
as variously entering into beautiful compositions. (1) Fitness of 
the parts to the design for which the object was formed. Twisted 
columns are elegant; but, as they convey an idea of weakness, 
they displease when required to bear a great weight. Hogarth 
resolves proportion (which some consider an independent source of 
beauty) into fitness. The proportions of the parts are determined 
by the purpose of the whole. (2) Variety, if it do not degenerate 
into confusion, is a distinct element of beauty. The gradual 
lessening of the pyramid is a kind of variety. (3) Uniformity or 
symmetry is a source of beauty only when rendered necessary by 
the requirements of fitness. The pleasure arising from the 
symmetry of the two sides of the body, is really produced by the 
knowledge that the correspondence is intentional and for use. 
Painters always avoid regularity, and prefer to take a building at 
an angle rather than in front. Uniformity is often necessary to 
give stability. (4) Simplicity (as opposed to complexity), when 
joined with variety, is pleasing, because it enables the eye to enjoy 
the variety with ease ; but, without variety, it is wholly insipid. 
Compositions in sculpture are generally kept within the boundary 
of a cone or pyramid, on account of the. simplicity or variety of 
those figures. (5) Intricacy is pleasing because the unravelling of 
it gives the interest of pursuit. Waving and serpentine lines are 
beautiful, because they ' lead the eye a wanton kind of chase.' 
(6) Magnitude contributes to raise our admiration. 

Hogarth's best known views refer to the beautiful in Lines. 



THEOKIES OF BEAUTY— BURKE. 307 

"Waving lines are more beautiful than straight lines, because they 
are more varied; and among waving lines, there is but one 
entitled to be called the Line of Beauty, the others bulging too 
much, and so being gross and clumsy, or straightening too much, 
and thereby becoming lean and poor. But the most beautiful line 
is the serpentine line, called, by Hogarth, the Line of Grace. This 
is the line drawn once round, from the base to the apex, of a long, 
slender cone. As contrasted with straight lines, the lines of beauty 
and grace possess an intrinsic power of pleasing. Hogarth pro- 
duced numerous instances of the beauty of those forms, and in- 
ferred that objects were beautiful according as they could be ad- 
mitted into composition. This doctrine, although denied by Alison, 
contains a portion of the truth. 

Burke's theory, contained in his Essay on the Suhlime and- 
Beautiful, is couched in a material phraseology. He says that 
beautiful objects have the tendency to produce an agreeaUe relaxa- 
tion of the fibres. Thus, * smooth things are relaxing ; siveet things, 
which are the smooth of taste, are relaxing too ; and siveet smells, 
which bear a great affinity to siveet tastes, relax very remarkably.' 
* "We often apply the quality of siveetness metaphorically to visual 
objects ; ' and following out this rernarkaUe analogy of the senses, he 
purposes 'to call sweetness the beautiful of the taste.'' 

His theory leads him to put an especial stress on the beauty of 
smoothness, a quality so essential to beauty, he says, that he cannot 
recollect anything beautiful but what is smooth. ' In trees and 
flowers, smooth leaves are beautiful; smooth slopes of earth in 
gardens ; smooth streams in landscapes ; smooth coats of birds and 
beasts in animal beauty ; in fine women, smooth skins ; and, in 
several sorts of ornamental furniture, smooth and polished sur- 
faces.' The one-sidedness of this view was obvious enough. 
Smoothness is one element of beauty, in certain circumstances, and 
for obvious reasons. The smoothness and the softness of the 
animal body are connected with the pleasure of touch. The 
smoothness of polished surfaces is the condition of their brilliancy ; 
an effect enhanced by sharp ang-les, although Burke alleges that 
he does not find any natural object that is angular, and at the 
same time beautiful. The 'smooth, shaven green' of well kept 
lawns is associated with the fit or the useful ; it suggests the in- 
dustry, attention, or art, bestowed upon it by the opulent and 
careful owner. The same smoothness and trim regularity, Stewart 
observes, would not make the same agreeable suggestions in a 
sheep walk, a deer park, or the neighbourhood of a venerable ruin. 
Again, in the moss-rose, the opposite of smoothness is beautiful. 

It has been remarked by Price (and Dugald Stewart concurs in 
the remark) ' that Burke's general principles of beauty — smooth- 
ness, gradual variation, delicacy of make, tender colours, and such 
as insensibly melt into each other — are strictly applicable to female 
beauty,^ Even in treating of the beauty of Nature, says Stewart, 
Burke's imagination always delights to repose on her softest and 
most feminine features ; or, to use his own language, on * such 



308 iESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

qualities as induce in us a sense of tenderness and affection, or 
some other passion the most nearly resembling them.' 

Alison's vv^ork on Taste was published in 179Q. The First 
Part of it is occupied with an analysis of what we feel when under 
the emotions of Beauty or Sublimity. He endeavours to show 
that this effect is something quite different from Sense, being in 
fact, not a Simple, but a Complex Emotion, involving (1) the ]Dro- 
duction of some Simple Emotion, or the exercise of some moral 
affection, and (2) a peculiar exercise of the Imagination. 

The author occupies many pages in describing the nature of 
this peculiar exercise of Imagination, which must go along with 
the simple pleasure. When any object of sublimity or beauty is 
presented to the mind, every man is conscious, he says, of a train 
of thought being awakened analogous in character to the original 
object ; and unless such a train be awakened, there is no aesthetic 
feeling. He illustrates the position by supposing first the case 
where something occurs to prevent the outgoing of the imagi- 
nation, as when the mind is occupied with some incompatible 
feeling, for example, pain or grief, or a purely intellectual en- 
grossment of attention. So, there may be chara-cters wholly 
unsuited to this play of imagination, as there are others in whose 
minds it luxuriates. Again, there are associations that increase 
the exercise of imagination, and also the emotion of beauty. 
Such ai'e the local associations of each one's life, and the historic 
associations whereby the interest of places is enhanced — Runny- 
mede, Agincourt, to an Englishman; also the effect of poetry, 
music, and works of art in adding to the interest of natural 
objects and of historic events. The effect called Picturesqueness 
operates in the same direction, whether the occurrence of pic- 
turesque objects in a scene — an old tower in a deep wood — or the 
pictui-esque descriptions of poetry. 

It is necessary to enquire farther into the distinctive nature of 
those trains of Imagination ; or, wherein they differ from other 
trains. The author resolves the difference into these two circum- 
stances : 1st, the nature of the Ideas or Conceptions themselves, 
and 2ndly, the Law of their Succession. On the first head, he 
remarks, that, while the great mass of our ideas excite no emotion 
whatever, the ideas of Beauty excite some Affection or Emotion 
— Gladness, Tenderness, Pity, Melancholy, Admiration, Power, 
Majesty, Terror; whence they laary he teruied ideas of emotion. On 
the second head, — the Law of Succession, — the ideas of imagination 
have an emotional character allied to the original emotion ; the 
emotional keeping is preserved throughout. 

The author adds a series of illustrations of the influences that 
further, or that arrest, the development of Sensibility and Taste, 
all tending to establish his two positions above given. On these 
positions, it may be remarked, that they evade, rather than 
cvxplain, whatever difficulty may be on the subject ; and that 
their value consists in illustrating the really important point that 
Imagination involves, as a part of its nature, the predominance of 



THEOKIES OF BEAUTY — ALISON. 309 

some emotion. When lie says, that unless the imagination be 
free to operate, no feeling of beauty will arise in the presence of 
a beautiful object, he means only that we cannot be awakened to 
beauty, if the mind is preoccupied by some incompatible state ; 
the possibility of imagination is the possibility of feeling. 

JEe also assumes, without sufficient grounds, that the state of 
reverie is necessary to the emotion of beauty ; that the mind 
cannot confine its thoughts to the original object, but must 
wander in quest of other objects capable of kindling the same 
emotion. Now, although this is a very natural and frequent 
effect of being once aroused to a strong eniotion, there is no 
absolute necessity for it ; nor would the eniotion be excluded from 
the aesthetic class, although the thoughts were to be detained 
upon the beautiful object. 

Such being his general doctrine, Alison applies it to explain 
the Sublimity and Beauty of the Material World. He starts with 
affirming positively that matter in itself, or as perceived by the 
senses, is unfit to produce any kind of emotion ; the smell of a 
rose, the colour of scarlet, the taste of a pine-apple, are said to 
produce agreeable Sensations, but not agreeable Emotions. But 
the sensible qualities may form associations tvith emotions or affections, 
and become the signs for suggesting these to the mind. The author 
enumerates various classes of associations so formed. (1) The 
signs of Useful qualities, or the forms and colours of objects of 
utility, as a ship, suggest the pleasure of Utility. (2) The marks 
of Design, Wisdom, or Skill, suggest the emotions corresponding 
to those qualities. (3) Material appearances, — as the countenance, 
gesture, or voice of a human being, — suggest the human attributes, 
Power, Wisdom, Fortitude, Justice, Benevolence, &c., and the 
pleasurable emotion that their contemplation inspires. (4) There 
are appearances that suggest mental qualities by metaphorical 
or personifying resemblance ; whence we speak of the Strength 
of the Oak, the Delicacy of the ^lyrtle, the Boldness of a Eock, 
the Modesty of the Yiolet. So there is some analogy between an 
ascending path and Ambition^ a descending and Decay ; between 
sunshine and Joy, darkness and Sorrow, silence and Tranquillity, 
morning and Eojpe, soft colourino^ and Gentleness of Character, 
slenderness of form and Delicacy of Mind. 

He then discusses the Sublimity and Beauty of Sound. As 
regards simple sounds, he allows no intrinsically pleasing effect, 
and attributes all their influence to associations, of which he cites 
numerous examples. He considers, however, that the leading dis- 
tinctions of sound, — Loud and Low, Grave and Acute, Long and 
Short, Increasing and Diminishing, — ^have general associations, 
the result of long experience of the conjoined qualities: thus 
loud sound is connected with Pov/er and Danger, and so on. 

Under Compound Sounds, he has to consider Music. He still 
resolves the pleasure of musical composition into associations. 
Each musical Key suggests a characteristic emotion, by imitating 
as nearly as possible the expression of that emotion. He allows 



310 ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

that music cannot very specifically set forth any one passion ; the 
assistance of Poetry is requisite to distinguish A.mbition, Fortitude, 
Pity, &c. As to elaborate compositions and harmonies, their 
superiority over a simple air consists in suggesting the Skill, 
Invention, or Taste of tide composer, and the performer. 

The Beauty of Colours is also exclusively referred to their 
associations with a number of pleasing qualities. For example, 
"White, the colour of Day, expresses cheerfulness and gaiety. 
Blue, the colour of the Heavens in serene weather, expresses 
serenity of mind ; Green, the colour of the Earth in Spring, is 
associated with the delights of that season. These are general 
and prevailing associations. Others are more accidental, as 
Purple, the dress of kings, with royal authority; Eed, in this 
country the uniform of the soldier, with military functions and 
prowess. 

The author gives a more detailed explanation of the Sublimity 
and Beauty of Forms, Denying, as before, all intrinsic pleasure 
in any one form, he quotes a series of examples of their derived 
effects. Thus, the forms of bodies dan.2:erou's or powerful, as the 
weapons and insignia of war, are sublime. The forms of Trees 
are sublime as expressive of strength; still more so the rocks 
that have stood the storms and convulsions of ages. The sublimest 
of mechanical arts is Architecture, from the strength and durability 
of its productions ; and the most sublime result of Architecture is 
the Gothic castle, which has resisted alike the desolations of time 
and the assaults of war. The sublime of Magnitude generally is 
referable to strength ; while magnitude in height expresses Ele- 
vation and Magnanimity ; in depth. Danger and Terror ; in 
length, Yastness and Infinity; and in breadth, Stability. 

In the Beauty of Forms, account must be taken (1) of angular 
lines, and (2) of winding or curve lines. The first are chiefly con- 
nected with bodies possessing Hardness, Strength, or Durability; 
the second (seen in the infancy and youth, both of plants and 
of animals) are expressive of Infancy, Tenderness, and Delicacy ; 
and also the very important circumstance of Ease, as opposed to 
constraint, being the beauty of the bending river, of the vine 
wreathing itself about the elm, and so on. 

From Simple Forms, he proceeds to Complex, which involve 
new considerations. In the first place, complex arrangements 
must have some general character [a feeble and inadequate mode 
of stating the condition of Harmony], in which he quotes largely 
from landscape Gardening. He applies the same rule to Complex 
Colours, which are beautiful only by their Expression ; the beauty 
of Dress, for example, being altogether relative to the wearer and 
the circumstances. 

In the next place. Composite Forms afford wide scope for the 
exhibition of Design, Fitness, and Utility. The beauty of Design 
he expounds at great length, and with indiscriminate application 
to the Useful Arts and to the Fine Arts. He descants upon the 
opposing demands for Uniformity and for Variety, the one a sign 



THEORIES OF BEAUTY — ALISON. ' 311 

of Unity of Design, tlie other a sign of Elegant, or embellished 
Design. Beautiful compositions must include both. By Fitness, 
is meant the adaptation of means to Ends, also a source of beauty. 
He explains Proportion purely by reference to Fitness, and dis- 
cusges the Orders of Architecture under this view. The beauty 
of architectural proportions is (1) the expression of Fitness of 
Support, (2) the expression of Fitness to the Character of the 
apartment, and (3) the Fitness for the particular purpose of the 
building. Utility also contributes to beauty, as in a clock or 
vvatch ; this is our satisfaction at the attainment of valuable ends. 

He then considers the Sublimity and Beauty of Motion, which 
he resolves into the expression of Power. Great power, able to 
overcome obstacles, is sublime ; gentle, moderate, diminutive 
power inspires Tenderness, or Affection. Rapid motion, as indi- 
cating great power, is sublime ; slow motion, by indicating gentle 
power, is beautiful. Motion in a Straight Line, if rapid, is sub- 
lime ; if slow, beautiful. Motion in an Angular Line, expresses 
obstruction and imperfect power, and, considered in itself, is un- 
pleasing, although in the case of Lightning, the impressiveness 
of the phenomenon redeems it. Motion in Curves is expressive 
of Ease, of Freedom, of Playfulness, and is beautiful. 

The Beauty of the Human Countenance and Form is discussed 
at length . As regards the Countenance, the first point is Colour 
or Complexion. On general grounds, whiteness expresses Purity, 
Fineness, Gaiety ; the dark complexion. Melancholy, Gloom, or 
Sadness. Clear and uniform colours suggest Perfection and Con- 
sistency ; mixed and mottled complexions. Confusion and Imper- 
perfection. A bright Eye is significant of Happiness ; a dim and 
turbid eye, of Melancholy. Colour has also an efficacy as suggest- 
ing Health or Disease ; and a farther efficacy in expressing Dis- 
positions of Mind ; dark complexions being connected with 
Strength ; fair complexions with Cheerfulness and Delicacy. The 
variable colours, or the changes of complexion, are still more 
decisively connected with states of mind ; the blush of Modesty, 
the glow of Indignation, and so on. That there is no intrinsic 
power in colour seems to be shown by our being at one time 
pleased, and another time displeased with the same colour, as with 
the blush of modesty and the blush of guilt. 

A like reasoning applied to the Forms of the Countenance, or 
the Features, points to the conclusion that their beauty depends 
on the expression of character and passion ; we have one set of 
forms for the beauty of infancy and youth, another set for mature 
age ; and so with the variable expression of states of feeling. 

In reference to the Human Form, he argues against the prin- 
ciple of Proportion, and rests the beauty first, upon its Fitness as 
a machine ; and secondly, on its Expression of mind and character. 
The account of Beauty of Attitude and of Gesture, on the same 
principles, follows and concludes the work. The closing summary 
is in these words : — ' The Beauty and Sublimity which are felt in 
the various appearances of matter, are finally to be ascribed to 



312 ' ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

their Expression of Mind ; or to their being, either directly or in* 
directly, the signs of those qualities of mind which are fitted, by 
the constitution of our nature, to affect us with pleasing or in- 
teresting emotions.' 

Jeffrey, in the article ' Beauty,' in the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
nica, adopts substantially the theory of Alison. He states fhe 
theory thus : — ' Our sense of beauty depends entirely on our pre- 
vious experience of simpler pleasures or emotions, and consists in 
the suggestion of agreeable or interesting sensations with which we 
had formerly been made familiar by the direct and intelligible 
agency of our common sensibilities ; and that vast variety of 
objects, to which we give the common name of beautiful, become 
entitled to that appellation, merely because they all possess the 
power of recalling or reflecting those sensations of which they 
have been the accompaniments, or with which tbey have been 
associated in our imagination by any other more casual bond of 
connexion.' He takes exception, however, to Alison's statement 
that the existence of a connected train or series of ideas, is an 
essential part of the' perception of beauty ; remarking that the 
effect of a beautiful object may be instantaneous and immediate, 
and that a train of ideas of emotion may accompany the percep- 
tion of ugliness. 

In answer to the question — What are the primary affections by 
whose suggestion we experience the feeling of beauty ? — Jeffrey 
answers, all pleasing sensations and emotions whatsoever, and 
many that are, in their first incidence, painful. Every feeling 
agreeable to experience, to recall, or to witness, may become the 
source of beauty in any external thing that reminds us of that 
feeling. 

It follows that we never can be interested in anything but the 
fortunes of sentient beings ; that every present emotion must refer 
back to some past feeling of some mind. We may be actuated in 
the first instance by a pure organic stimulus ; the pleasure at that 
stage is not beauty, it becomes so only by recollection, or mental 
reproduction. 

The author gives a variety of examples of his doctrine. 
Female beauty is explained by being the signs of two sets of 
qualities ; the first, youth and health : the "second, innocence, 
gaiety, sensibility, intelligence, delicacy or vivacity. A common 
English landscajDc is beautiful through the picture of human hap- 
piness presented to the imagination by a variety of signs. A 
Highland scene of wdld and rugged grandeur has for its leading 
impressions, romantic seclusion, and primeval simplicity; the 
sense of the Mighty Power that piled up the cliffs and rent the 
mountains ; the many incidents of the life of former inhabitants ; 
and the contrast of perishable humanity Avith enduring nature. 
The beauty of Spring is the renovation of life and joy to all ani- 
mated beings. 

After adducing, in support of the theory, examples of the 
arbitrary beauties of iiatural tastes and fashions, he follows Alison 



THEOEIES OF BEAUTY— JEFFREY. 313 

in adverting to the influence of similarity or analogy in giving 
interest to objects ; which explains much of the interest of Poetry. 
He then notices the objection that, if beauty be only a reflexion 
of love, we should confound the two feelings under one name, 
and answers first, that beauty really does attect us in a manner 
not very different from love ; secondly, the fact of being reflected, 
and not primitive, gives a character to the feelings in question ; 
and thirdly, there is always present a real and direct perception, 
imparting a liveliness to the emotion of beauty. 

Jeffrey argues strongly against Payne Knight's doctrine of the 
intrinsic beauty of colours. Even as regards the harmony and 
composition of colours, so much insisted on by artists and con- 
noisseurs, he suspects no little pedantry and jargon ; the laws of 
colouring will have their effect only with trained judges of the 
art, and through the force of associations. Apart from associa- 
tion, he will not admit that any distribution of tints or of light 
or shade bears a part in the eftect of picture. He has the same 
utter scepticism as to the intrinsic pleasure of sounds, or the mere 
musical arrangement of sounds. 

As inferences from the theory, Jeffrey specifies the substantial 
identity of the Sublime, the Beautiful and the Picturesque ; and 
also the essentially relative nature of Taste. For a man himself, 
there is no taste that is either bad or false ; the only difference is 
between much and little. The following sentence is a clue to the 
author's own individuality : — * Some who have cold affections, 
sluggish imaginations, and no habits of observation, can with 
difiiculty discern beauty in anything ; while others, who are full 
of kindness and sensibility, and who have been accustomed to 
attend to all the objects around them, feel it almost in every- 
thing.' 

DuCALD Stewart has devoted to the discussion of Beauty a 
series of Essays, making a large part of a volume, entitled Philo- 
sophical Essays, published in 1810. He agrees with the greater 
part of Alison's views on the influence of association in deter- 
mining the beauty of Colour, Form, and Motion, but maintains, 
against Alison, a primitive organic pleasure of colour. As to the 
curve line, or line of beauty according to Hogarth, he admits only 
' that this line seems, 'from an examination of many of ISTature's 
most pleasing productions, to be one of her most favourite forms.' 
He gives examples of Order, Fitness, Utility, Symmetry, &c.*, 
constituting? beauty. He discusses at length the Picturesque, in 
criticising the theory of Price. With reference to the view that 
would restrict beauty to mind, and make it exclusively a mental 
reflexion from primitive effects of matter, he repeats his claim for 
the intrinsic beauty of objects of sight: the visible object, if not 
the physical cause, is the occasion of the pleasure ; and it is on the 
eye alone that the organic impression is made. He strongly re- 
pudiates any idea or essence of Beauty, any one fact pervading all 
things called beautiful, as savouring of the exploded theory of 
general Ideas, 



314 ^ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

Stewart's theory of the Sublime principally takes account of 
the element of Height, the efficacy of which he traces to a con- 
tinued exercise of actual power to counteract gravity. To this he 
adds the associations of Height with the rising and setting of the 
heavenly bodies, and also with the position assigned by all nations 
to their Divinities. He supposes that the idea of the Terrible may 
add to the sublimity, and speaks of the * silent and pleasing awe ' 
experienced in a Gothic cathedral. The sublimity of Horizontal 
Extent arises entirely from the association between a commanding 
prospect and an elevated position ; extent of view being, in fact, 
a measure of height. The sublime of Depth is increased by the 
iwfulness of the situation. The celestial vault owes its sublimity 
to the idea of architectural support ('this majestical roof), 
enhanced by the amplitude of space and the sidereal contents. 
The Ocean combines unfathomable depth with sympathetic dread, 
and the power of its waves and waters; there being numerous 
superadded associations. 

Mr. EusKLN", in his Modern Painters, vol. ii., has discussed the 
principles of Beauty. He puts forward as the leading attributes 
of what he calls Typical Beauty (opposed to Vital Beauty), 
Infinity, Unity, Kepose, Symmetry, Purity, Moderation. There 
are superadded, in Vital Beauty, all the considerations relative 
to function, or the adaptation to ends. The author raises Art to 
a kind of religion ; every one of these attributes is connected with 
the Deity : Infinity, the Type of Divine Incomprehensibility ; 
Unity, the Type of the Divine Comprehensiveness ; Eepose, the 
T}^e of Divine Permanence; Symmetry, the Type of Divine Jus- 
tice ; Purity, the Type of Divine Energy ; Moderation, the Type 
of Government by Law. It is in detached and incidental observa- 
tions, rather than in the systematic exposition, that Mr. Euskin 
adverts to the ultimate analysis of Beauty. He defends the 
{esthetic character of the two senses — Sight and Hearing — on tine 
grounds of their permanence and self-sufficiency ; and as regards 
the pleasures of Sight, he takes notice of their unselfishness, to 
which he adds purity and spirituality. He contests Alison's 
theory, without being av/are that many of his own explanations 
coincide with that theory. His view of association is that it 
operates more in adding force to Conscience, than in the sense of 
beauty. He contends for the intrinsic and even exclusive beauty 
of curvature in Form ; and holds that the value of straight lines 
is to bring out the beauty of curves by contrast. The curve is a 
type of infinity. Something analogous belongs to the gradation 
of shades and colours, which gradation is their infinity. 

The general tendency of Mr. Euskin's speculations in Art is 
towards a severe asceticism, a kind of moral code, for which his 
only conceivable justification is the tendency of Art to cultivate 
I)leasures free from the taint of rivalry and selfishness. To make 
this object perfect, no work of Art should ever inspire even ideal 
longings for sensual or other monopolist pleasures ; an elevation 
both impossible and futile. Where to draw the line between the 



CAUSES OF LAUGHTER. 315 

interesting and the elevated, in the above meaning, must be a 
matter of opinion. 

THE LUDICROUS. 

1. The Ludicrous is connected with Laughter. 

The outburst, termed Laughter, has many causes. ]^ot 
to dwell upon purely physical influences, — as cold, tickling, 
hysteria, — the exuberance of. mere animal spirits chooses this 
among other violent manifestations, from which we may con- 
clude that it is an expression of agreeable feeling. Any great 
and sudden accession of pleasure, in the vehemence of the 
stimulation, chooses laughter as one outlet; the great in- 
tensity of the nervous wave is marked by respiratory con- 
vulsions, which are supposed (by Spencer) to check the 
ingress of oxygen, and thus moderate the excitement. The 
outburst of Liberty in a young fresh nature, after a time of 
restraint^ manifests itself in wild uproarious mirth and glee. 
The emotion of Power, suddenly gratified, has a special ten- 
dency to induce laughter. 

2. The most commonly assigned cause of the Ludicrous 
is Incongruity ; but all incongruities are not ludicrous. 

Liequality of means to ends, discord, disproportion, false- 
hood, are incongruous, but not necessarily ludicrous. An 
idiot ruling a nation is highly incongruous, but not laughable. 
The incongruity that leads to laughter is a peculiar sort, 
marked by a quality that deserves to be accounted the generic 
fact, and not a mere qualification of another fact. 

3. The occasion of the Ludicrous is the Degradation of 
some person or interest possessing dignity, in circum- 
stances that excite no other strong emotion. 

When any one suddenly tumbles into the mud, the spec- 
tator is disposed to laugh, unless the misery of the situation 
causes jiity instead. Should the victim, by pretentious attire, 
or pomposity of manner, or from any other reason, inspire 
contempt or dislike, the laughter is uncontrolled. Putting 
one into a fright, or into a rage (if not dangerous), giving 
annoyance by an ill smell, attaching filth in any way, are 
common modes of laughable degradation. An intoxicated man 
is ludicrous, if he does not excite pity, or disapprobation. 

In the Dunciad, a ludicrous effect is aimed at by de- 
scribing the flagellation of the criminals in Bridewell as 
happening after morning service at chapel. To most minds, 



316 -ESTHETIC EMOTIONS. 

the ludicrousness of the conjunction would be overborne by 
another sentiment. 

Amid the various theories of Laughter, this pervading fact is 
more or less recognized. According to Aristotle, Comedy is an 
illustration of worthless characters, not, indeed; in reference to 
every vice, but to what is mean ; the laughable has to do with 
what is deformed or mean ; it must be a deformity or meanness 
not painful or destructive (so as to produce pity, fear, anger, or 
other strong feelings). He would have been nearer the mark if " 
he had expressed it as causing something to appear mean that was 
formerly dignified ; for to depict what is already under a settled 
estimate of meanness, has little power to raise a laugh : it can 
merely be an occasion of reflecting our own dignity by compari- 
son. Some of Quintilian's expressions are more happy. ' A say- 
ing that causes laughter is generally based on false reasoning 
(some play upon words) ; has always something low in it ; is often 
purposely sunk into buffoonery; is never honourable to the subject of 
it,' ' Eesemblances give great scope for jests, and, especially, re- 
semblance to something meaner or of Jess consideration,' Campbell 
{Fhilosophy of Rhetoric), in reply to Hobbes, has maintained that 
laughter is associated with the perception of oddity, and not 
necessarily with degradation or contempt. He produces instances 
of the laughable, and challenges any one to find anything con- 
temptuous in them. 'Many,' he says, 'have laughed at the 
queerness of the comparison in these lines,— 

" For rhyme the rudder is of verses, 
With which, like ships, they steer their courses." 

who never dream't that there was any person or party, practice 
or opinion, derided in them.' Now, on the contrary, there is 
an obvious degradation of the poetic art ; instead of working 
under the mysterious and lofty inspiration of the Muse, the poet 
is made to compose by means of a vulgar mechanical process. 

In the theory of Hobbes, ' Laughter is a sudden glory arising 
from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by com- 
parison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.' 
In other words, it is an expression of the pleasurable feeling of 
superior power. Now, there are many cases where this will 
afford a complete explanation, as in the laugh of victory, ridicule, 
derision, or contempt, against persons that we ourselves have 
humiliated. But we can also laugh sympathetically, or where 
the act of degrading redounds to the glory of some one else, as in 
the enjoyment of comic literature generally, where we have no 
part in causing the humiliation that Ave laugh at. Moreover, 
laughter can bo excited against classes, parties, systems, opinions, 
institutions, and even inanimate things that by personification 
have contracted associations of dignity ; of which last, the couplet 
of Hudibras upon sunrise, is a sufiicient example. And, farther, 
the definition of Hobbes is still more unsuitable to Humour, 
which is counted something genial and loviiig, and as far re- 



RELEASE FROM CONSTRAINT. 317 

moved as may be, from self-glorification and proud exultation at 
other men's discomfiture. Not, however, that there is not even 
in the most genial humour, an element of degradation, but that 
the indignity is disguised, and, as it were, oiled, by some kindly 
infusion, such as would not consist with the unmitigated glee of 
triumphant superiority. 

Kant makes the ridiculous to arise from the sudden col- 
lapse of a long- raised and highly- wrought expectation. He 
should have added, supposing the person not affected with 
painful disappointment, anger, fear, or some other intense 
emotion. 

4. The pleasure of degrading something dignified may 
be referred (1) to the sentiment of Power, direct or sym- 
pathetic, or (2) to the release from a state of Constraint. 

In the deepest analysis, the two facts are the same ; there 
is in both, a joyful elation of rebound or relief from a state of 
comparative depression or inferiority. In such cases as have 
been described, the more obvious reference is to the sentiment 
of Power or superiority. In another class of cases, we may 
best describe the result as a release from Constraint. 

Under this last view, the Comic is a reaction from the 
Serious. The dignified, solemn, and stately attributes of 
things require a certain portion of rigid constraint ; and if we 
are suddenly relieved from this position, the rebound of 
hilarity ensues, as with children set free from school. The 
Serious in life is made up of labour, diflB.culty, hardship and 
all the necessities of our position, giving rise to the severe and 
constraining institutions of government, law, morality, educa- 
tion, religion. Whatever strikes awe or terror into men's 
minds is serious ; whatever prostrates, even for a moment, 
an awe- striking personage, is a delightful relief. A degrading 
conjunction may have the effect, as when Lucian vulgarizes 
the gods by mean employment. But then we must have 
ceased to entertain a genuine homage for the dignities thus 
prostrated ; or we must be willing to forego for a moment 
our sentiment of regard. The Comic is fed by false or faded 
dignities ; by affectation and hypocrisy ; by unmeaning and 
hollow pomp. Carlyle's Teufelsdrockh was convulsed with 
laughter once in his life, and the occasion was Richter's sug- 
gesting a cast-iron hing. 

The Moral Sense is discussed under Ethics, Part I. 
Chap. III. 



BOOK IV. 

THE WILL. 



CHAPTEE I. 
PEIMITIYE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 

1. The Primitive Elements of the Will have been 
stated to be (1) the Spontaneity of Movement, and (2) 
the Link between Action and Feeling, grounded in Self- 
conservation. In the maturing or growth of the AVill, 
there is an extensive series of Acquisitions, under the 
law of Eetentiveness or Contiguity. 

THE SPONTANEITY OF MOVEMENT. 

2. Spontaneity expresses the fact that the active organs 
may pass into movement, apart from the stimulus of Sen- 
sation. 

This doctrine has been already explained, and supported 
by a series of proofs (p. 14). The impulse is not stimulation, 
but a certain condition of the nervous centres and the muscles, 
connected mth natural vigour, nourishment, and rest. The 
exuberant movements of young and active animals are refer- 
able to natural spontaneity, rather than to the excitement of 
sensation. The movements of delirium and disease have no 
dependence whatever on sensation, but on the morbid con- 
gestion of the nerve centres. In the example of parturition, 
the uterus is prepared by the growth of muscular fibres, 
which, on reaching their maturity, contract of their own 
accord, and expel the foetus ; there is no special stimulation 



ISOLATION OF SPONTANEOUS DISCHARGES. 319 

at the moment of birth, but merely the ripening of the 
active mechanism. 

3. The muscles are distinguished into local groups, or 
Regions. 

It is convenient to study the operation of spontaneity in 
the separate groups of muscles. 

The Locomotive Apparatus is in every animal the largest 
muscular department. In vertebrate animals, this involves 
the limbs, v^ith their numerous muscles, and the trunk of the 
body, which chimes in with the movements of the extremities. 
When the central vigour of the system is copious, it overflows 
in movements of locomotion ; the infant can throw out its 
legs and arms, and swing the trunk and head. 

An important group is connected with the movements of 
the Mouth and Jaw. The Tongue is distinguished for 
flexibility and for independence, and we may consider its 
muscles as forming a group. The muscles of the Larynx, or 
voice, are also grouped. Yocal spontaneity is a well-marked 
fact ; there being numerous occasions when vocal outbursts 
have no other cause but the exuberant vigour. Other groups 
are found in the Abdomen and Perinasum. 

4. It is necessary for the commencement of voluntary 
power, that the organs to be commanded separately, should 
be capable of Isolation from ,the outset. 

The grouping of the muscles is shown by the parts being 
moved in company, as when the fingers are simultaneously 
closed or extended. It is necessary, however, that this group- 
ing should not be rigid or absolute, otherwise no separate 
movement could ever be acquired. Through distinctness of 
nervous connexions, there must be a possibility of spontaneous 
impulses afi'ecting one without the others. A remarkable 
instance of primitive isolation, such as to prepare the way for 
voluntary command, is seen of the forefinger ; the child, from 
the first, moves it apart, while the three others go together. 
The isolation of the thumb is less than of the forefinger, and 
greater than of the other fingers. There is very little isolation 
of the toes ; yet their grouping is not inseparable, as we may 
see from the instances of acquired power to write and perform 
other operations by the feet. The limbs are grouped for the 
locomotive rhythm ; but they are also spontaneously moved in 
separation. The upper limbs, or arms, in man, have a certain 
tendency to common action, together with tendencies to indi- 



320 PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 

vidua! action. The two sides of the face are moved together 
in a very powerful conjunction, yet not without occasional 
spontaneous separation, so as to give a starting point for volun- 
tary separation. The chief example of indissoluble union is 
the two eyes. Also, there is a tendency in the different parts 
of the face to go together in characteristic expressions — eye- 
brows, mouth, nose — but not without that occasional isolation 
through which we can acquire a separate control of each part. 

That spontaneous impulses should be directed, in occasional 
isolation, upon all these various organs, separately controlled 
in the maturity of the will, is thus the first step in our volun- 
tary education. The spontaneity of the moving system, at the 
outset, is various and apparently capricious ; at one time, it 
overtakes a large number of muscles, at other times, a smaller 
number ; it does not always unite in the same combinations : 
and out of this variety, we can snatch the beginnings of 
isolated control. 

In parts where there are no spontaneous movements at 
the beginning, there can never arise voluntary movements. 
Such is the case with the two ears, which are rarely com- 
manded by human beings. In them the failure to acquire 
voluntary control must be ascribed to the immobility of the 
parts, and not merely to the absence of isolating spontaneity, 

5. It is requisite to show ia what way the spontaneous 
discharges may vary in degree, through the wide compass 
attained by our voluntary energies. 

Our command of the voluntary organs involves a great 
range of gradation, rising to a violent sudden blow, almost 
like an explosion. In order to account for these violent 
exertions, by the hypothesis of spontaneity converted into 
will, we have to show that there may be corresponding 
energy in the spontaneous discharges. 

(1) The Natural vigour of the system, nurtured and pent 
up, leads to outbursts of very considerable energy. We see 
this in the daily experience of robust children and youth. The 
explosiveness of the boy or girl relieved from constraint is of 
the kind suited to an}^ violent effort. To leap ditches, to 
throw down barriers, and displace heavy bodies, are what the 
system, in its mere spontaneity, is adequate to acHieve. 

(2) The vigour may be greatly increased by Excitement ; 
that is, an unusual flow of blood to the active organs, through 
what are termed Stimulants. We usually give this name to 
drugs, such as alcohol, but the most usual and the readiest 



SPONTANEOUS DISCHAllGES VAKY IN DEGEEE. 321 

stimnlation is mere exercise, and especially rapid movements 
continued for a little time. The exertion of any part deter- 
mines an increased flow of blood to that part, at the expense 
of other organs ; a quick run makes the circulation course 
to the muscles, away from the stomach, brain, and other parts. 
When the accumulation of blood is at its maximum, there is 
a corresponding energy of the movements. 

(3) Stimulation may arise through mental causes, as 
pleasure and pain : it being understood that these are not 
abstractions, but embodiments. According to the law of 
Self-conservation, an access of pleasure is an access of vital 
power, shown in some of the forms of increased activity, 
muscular movement being one of the most usual. An acute 
and sudden thrill of pleasure, — as in the overthrow of a rival, 
the conquering of a difficulty, the view of an imposing spec- 
tacle, — is physically accompanied with elation of body; the 
robust frame dances with joy. The profuse expenditure at 
that moment is equal to the requirements of a great occasion. 
He that has overcome one barrier, in the flush of success, is 
stronger for the next. 

The pleasure of exercise, to a fresh and vigorous system, 
supplies a new stimulus. 

(4) Although, by the law of Conservation, pain is accom- 
panied by a lowering of energy, yet in the exceptional form 
of the acute and pungent smart, not crushing or severe, a 
painful application may increase the active energies for a 
time. The nervous currents awakened by a pungent stimulus, 
as the smart of a whip, find no adequate vent except in mus- 
cular activity, and to that they tend. 

It is well known that Opposition may act as an ef&cacious 
stimulant. An invincible resistance indeed both stops pro- 
gress, and suspends the motive to proceed ; but a small con- 
querable opposition provokes a reaction, with augmentation of 
power. The efiect is a complex one. Part of it is due to the 
stimulus of the shock of obstruction, which operates like an 
acute smart ; and part to the flush consequent on a successful 
struggle. The feelings connected with - our desires, and the 
emotions of pride, humiliation, and anger, complete the in- 
fluence of the situation. 

These various circumstances are adduced as a sufficient 
explanation of the flexibility and compass of our spontaneity. 
The rise of one or other of these various stimulations pro- 
duces, in the first instance, an outburst of active energy ; and 
among the associations constituting the mature will, there are 



322 PRIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 

formed links of connexion between strong exertions and the 
occasions for them. The young horse needs the spur and 
whip to prepare him for a leap ; after a time, the sight of the 
barrier or the ditch is enough to evoke the additional impetus. 
One of the aptitudes most signally absent in infancy is the 
power of increasing the efforts so as to overcome a difficulty. 

It should be remarked that although, in our mature voli- 
tion, we can, on demand, originate a very rapid movement, as 
in preventing a breakage, we cannot suddenly exert a very 
great momentum, as in striking a heavy blow. A little time 
must be allowed to work up the system to a higher pitch of 
activity. Mere association cannot command, in a moment, a 
massive expenditure ; we must first resort to the stimulants 
of active power, and chiefly to the exciting agency of a con- 
tinuing effort, as in making a run before jumping a high bar. 
Combatants strike their heaviest blows after the fio'ht has 

o 

lasted for some time. 

LINK OF FEELING AND ACTION. 

6. As Spontaneity is not necessarily preceded by 
Feeling, there must be some medium for uniting it with 
our feelings. The requisite Link is believed to be given 
under the Law of Self- conservation. 

The doctrine connecting pleasure with increased, and pain 
with diminished, vitality, gives a starting point for the union 
of action and feeling. A state of pleasure, by its connexion 
with increased vitality in general, involves increased muscular 
activity in particular. A shock of pain in lowering the col- 
lective forces of the system, saps the individual force of mus- 
cular movement. 

7. From the one mental root, named Self-conservation, 
there grow two branches, which diverge widely, and yet 
occasionally come together. The iirst branch includes the 
proper manifestations or Expression of Emotion. 

The Emotional manifestations have been already described 
as -consisting in part of movements of all degrees of force or 
intensity; thus affording at least one connexion between feel- 
ing and action. Under pleasure, we put forth a variety of 
gesticulations ; and under pain, we collapse into a more or 
less passive condition (the exce]Dtional operation of acute pain 
being left out of account). But these effects of movement, 
although distinct from spontaneity, are not of a kindred with 



MOVEMENTS ARISING IN EMOTION. 323 

volition. The movements of expression under pleasure 
appear to be selected according to a law pointed out by Mr. 
Herbert Spencer, namely, tbe natural priority of muscles small 
in calibre and often exercised, as in the expression of the face, 
the breathing, the voice, &c.; whereas the movements selected 
in volition are such as promote pleasure or abate pain. 

It is a proper question to consider whether these em.otional 
movements are not of themselves sufficient to account for the 
beginning of volition, without our having recourse to Spontaneity, 
or action unpreceded by any feeling. The answer is, first, that 
spontaneous movements being established as a fact, are already in 
the field for the purpose. Secondly, in them, and not in the 
emotional movements, do we most readily obtain the isolated 
promptings that are desiderated in the growth of the will. The 
emotional wave almost invariably affects a whole group of move- 
ments. Still, it is possible that these movements of emotion may 
occasionally come into the service. 

8. The second branch or outgoing of Self-conservation 
is more directly suited for the growth of Volition. Move- 
ments being supposed already begun by Spontaneity (or 
in other ways), and to concur with pleasure ; the effect of 
the pleasure, on its physical side, is to raise the whole 
vital energy, these movements included. 

It is necessary to show that this (with the obverse) is a 
law of the constitution, operating all through life, as well as 
at the commencement of the education of the Will. 

It is known that any tasted delight urges us, by an imme- 
diate stimulus, to continue the movements that have procured 
it. Moving from the cold towards an agreeable warmth, our 
pace is quickened as of its own accord. We do not deliberate 
and formally resolve to go on ; we are at once laid hold of by 
what seems a primordial link of our mental system, and move 
to the increasing pleasure. The act of eating is another 
example. The relish of the food, by an immediate response, 
adds energy to mastication. Animals and children, who have 
departed least from the primary cast of nature, conspicuously 
exhibit the augmented activity following on a tasted pleasure. 

An apparent exception to the law occurs in the sedaLive 
effect of some pleasures, chiefly such as are massive rather 
than acute. A voluminous and agreeable warmth soothes 
down an activity already begun, and inclines as to repose and 
to sleep. But in such cases, the law is disguised merely, and 
not suspended. • The warmth really promotes the activity 
suited to its own fruition, as soon as that activity is singled 



324 PKIMITIVE ELEMENTS OF VOLITION. 

out and connected with tlie pleasure ; which activity consists 
in maintaining a rigid and quiescent attitude. The occupant 
of a position of comfortable snugness may seem to be quies- 
cent and passive ; let any one, however, attempt to dispossess 
him, and he will put forth energy in resistance. Still, the 
fact must be admitted that the voluminous pleasures are 
quieting and serene ; they do not provoke unbounded Desire 
and pursuit, like the more acute enjoyments, but rather lull 
to indolence. And the explanation appears to be, that the 
physical state corresponding to them, is inimical to vehement, 
intense, or concentrated activity. 

Another exception to the rousing efficacy of pleasure is 
the exhaustion of the strength. All voluntary pursuit sup- 
poses a certain freshness of the active organs, as a concurring 
requisite. In the extremity of fatigue, the most acute plea- 
sure will fail as a motive. 

The obverse position is equally well supported by our ex- 
perience. Allowing for the exception of the acute smart, the 
ordinary effect, or collateral consequence of pain, is cessation 
of energy. If any present movement is bringing us pain, 
there is a self-acting remission or suspension of the damaging 
career. The mastication is arrested, in the full sway of its 
power, by a bitter morsel turning up. The most effectual 
cure of over-action is the inflicting of pain. 

Hence, whenever the cessation of a movement at work is 
the remedy for pain, the evil cures itself by the general ten- 
dency of self-conservation. The point is to explain how pain, 
in opposition to its nature, initiates and maintains a strenuous 
activity for procuring its abolition. In this case, the operat- 
ing element may be shown to be, not the pain, but the relief 
from jpain. When in a state of suffering, there occurs a 
moment of remission, that remission has all the elating and 
quickening effect of. pleasure; as regards the agency of the 
will, pleasure and the remission of pain are the same thing. 
Relief in fact or in prospect, is the real stimulant to labour for 
vanquishing pain and misery. 

It is an undoubted fact, that in a depressed tone of mind, 
with no hope or prospect of relief, we are indisposed to active 
measures of any sort. This represents the proper tendency of 
pain. The activity begins with some conscious amelioration, 
and is maintained and increased, as that amelioration in- 
creases. 



PROCESS OF VOLUNTARY ACQUIREMENT. 325 

CHAPTEE 11. 
GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

1. The elements of voluntary power being assumed as 
(1) Spontaneity and (2) Self-conservation, we have to 
exemplify the connexion of these into the matured will, 
by a process of education. 

The distinctive aptitude of the mature will is to select at 
once the movements necessary to attain a pleasure or relieve 
a pain, as when we raise to the nostrils a sweet violet, or 
m.ove away from something malodorous. There is no such 
power possessed by us at birth. 

2. The .process of acquirement may be described 
generally as follows : — At the outset, there happens a 
coincidence, purely accidental, between a pleasure and a 
movement (of Spontaneity) that maintains and increases 
it ; or between a pain and a movement that alleviates or 
removes it ; by the link of Self-conservation, the movement 
bringing pleasure, or removing pain, is sustained and 
augmented. Should this happen repeatedly, an adhesive 
growth takes place, through which the feeling can after- 
wards command the movement. 

To exemplify this position, we will now review, in order, 
the primitive feelings, and the volitions grafted upon them. 

Commencing with the Muscular Feelings, w^e may remark 
upon the pleasures of Exercise. Spontaneous movements 
occurring in a fresh and vigorous system give pleasure ; and 
with the pleasure there is an increased vitality extending to 
the movements, which are thereby sustained and increased ; 
the pleasure as it were feeding itself. Out of the primitive 
force of self-conservation, we have the very effect that charac- 
terizes the will, namely, movement or action for the attain- 
ment of pleasure. 

The pains of Fatigue give the obverse instance. The 
immediate effect of pain being abated energy, the movements 
will suffer their share of the abatement and come to a stand ; 
a remedy for the evil as effectual as any resolution of the 
mature will. 
16 



326 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

These instances do not indicate any progress in our volun- 
tary education. Let us next take the pains of Muscular Re- 
straint, or of Spontaneity held in by obstacles, as when an 
animal is hedged into a narrow chamber. Various writhings 
are the natural consequence of the confined energies ; at last 
some one movement takes the animal to an opening, and it 
bolts out with" explosive vehemence. When this experience 
is repeated several times, an association willvbe formed bcr 
tween the state of constraint and the definite movements that 
lead to a release ; so that the proper course shall be taken at 
once, and without the writhings and uncertainties attending 
the first attempts. As soon as this association is complete, 
we have a step in the career of voluntary acquirement. 

Proceeding next to the Sensations proper, we begin with 
Organic Life. Among organic acute pains generally, we may 
single out the instructive case of a painfal contact, as with a 
hot or a sharp instrument. The remedy is to retract the 
member ; and people are apt to suppose, erroneously, that we 
do this by instinct. Now, it is true that a painfal pinch will 
induce, by a reflex process, a convulsive movement of the 
part ; while, as a part of the emotional wave, there will be 
a stir over the whole body. But there is no certainty that 
the reflex movement would be the remedial one ; it might be 
the very opposite. Supposing the limb contracted, the reflex 
stimulus would probably throw it out ; and if the sharp 
point lay in the way, there might be a much worse injury. 
The process of education would be this. Some one move- 
ment would be found to concur wdth diminished pain ; that 
m.ovement would be sustained by the general elation of relief; 
other movements increasing the pain would be sapped and 
arrested. A single experience of this kind would go for little ; 
a few repetitions of the suitable coincidence would initiate a 
contiguous association, gradually ripening into a full coher- 
ence ; and the one single movement of retraction would be 
chosen on the instant the pain was felt. That may appear an 
uncertain and bungling way of attaining the power of ridding 
ourselves of a hot cinder ; and the more likely course would 
seem to be the x)ossession of an instinct under the guise of a 
reflex action. But if we have an instinct for one class of 
pains, why have we not the same for others ? For example, 
the pain of cramp in the leg, suggests tons no remedy. Only 
after many fruitless movements, does there occur the one that 
alleviates the suflering. The fair interpretation is that we 
have too little experience of this pain to acquire the proper 



VOLITIONAL GROWTHS IN THE SENSATIONS. 327 

mode of dealing with it ; while the painful contacts with the 
skin are so numerous from the beginning of life, that our 
education is forced on and is early completed. 

The Sensations of the Lungs may be referred to. Re- 
spiration is a reflex act, under voluntary control. The pain- 
ful sensation of most frequent occurrence is that arising from 
deficient or impure air. The primitive eifect of pain is the op- 
posite of the remedy ; for, instead of collapsing into inactivity, 
the lungs must be aided by increased breathing energy. How 
is this attained in the first instance ? The only assignable 
means is some accidental exertion of the respiratory muscles 
followed by relief, and maintained by the new power accruing 
to the general system. The infant is in all likelihood unequal 
to the effort of forced breathing. This is perhaps one of the 
deficiencies of the uneducated will of childhood, rendering 
life more precarious at its early stages. 

The augmented energy from pure air, suddenly encoun- 
tered, would directly lead to an augmented respiration. The 
voluntary acquisition of the command of the lungs would, in this 
case, be a more apparent oSshoot from the primary instinct. 

Every sentient creature contracts many volitional habits 
in connexion with Warmth and Chillness. Animals soon 
learn to connect the crouching attitude with increased 
warmth. Other devices are fallen upon, as lying close to- 
gether, and creeping into holes and shelters. I cannot say 
how far even the intelligent quadrupeds associate relief from 
chillness with a quick run. The lesson is one very much 
opposed to the primary effect of the sensation, which, in its 
character of massive pain, damps and depresses the energies. 

The sensations of the Alimentary Canal are rich in volun- 
tary associations. Sucking is said to be purely reflex in the 
new-born infant ; swallowing is performed by involuntary 
muscles, and is always reflex. The child put to the nipple 
commences to suck by a reflex stimulus of voluntary muscles ; 
the act being one of considerable complication, involving a co- 
operation of the mouth (which has to close round the nipple), 
the tongue (which applies itself to the opening of the nipple, 
making an air-tight contact), and the chest (which performs 
an increased inspiration, determining the flow of the milk 
when the tongue is pulled away). Being a conscious effect, 
operated by muscles all voluntary, it comes immediately under 
the fundamental law we are considering; the stimulus arising 
from the nourishment heightens the activity, until the point 
of satiety is reached, when a new and depressing sensibility 



328 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

comes into play, and induces cessation. Two powers, how- 
ever, are at work ; the nourishment received permanently 
increases the active vigour ; the sensation of satiety has to 
counterwork this, by the temporary depression due to stom- 
achic fuhiess. Probably at first infants glut the stomach too 
much before the depression arrests their sucking activity, in 
the face of the general stimulation brought about by the 
nourishment ; very frequently they are withdrawn from the 
breast before ceasing of themselves. So far we have a reflex 
act controlled by the power of self-conservation ; the only 
supposable education is the giving over at the extreme point 
of satiety. But in the next stage, there is room for volun- 
tary acquirements of a high order. The applying the mouth 
to the breast under the sensation of hunger is a somewhat 
complex arrangement ; it involves an association with the 
sight of the breast and the nipple, as well as with movements 
for approaching it. In fact, we have here a branch of our 
education in perceiving distance, or in connecting visible 
magnitudes with approaching and receding movements ; an 
education that doubtless commences in the most interesting 
cases, and extends itself gradually over the whole sphere of 
action. 

In Mastication, the progress of voluntary power may be 
stated to advantage. The powerful sensations of relish and 
taste, concurring with the spontaneity of the tongue (pro- 
bably the most moveable and independent member of the 
whole system), and prompting a continuing movement, would 
be the iDeginning of a connexion, soon ripened, between the 
contact of a morsel of food and the definite acts of pressing it 
to the palate, and moving it about. The infant is unable to 
masticate : a morsel put into its mouth at first nsnally 
tumbles out. But if there occur spontaneous movements of 
the tongue, mouth, or jaw, giving birth to a strong relish, 
these movements are sustained, and begin to be associated 
with the sensations ; so that after a time there grows up a 
firm connexion. The favouring circumstances are {hese : — 
the sensations are powerful ; and the movements are remark- 
able for various and isolated spontaneity : the tongue and 
the mouth are the organs of all others prone to detached and 
isolated exertions. 

The operation of a sour or bitter taste presents the case from 
the other side. The primary effect is to suspend the action 
of the organs ; the mere infant can do no more. The spitting 
out of a nauseous morsel is a complex and a later acquisition. 



VOLITIONAL UEGENCY OF SOFT TOUCH. 329 

The voluntary command of the lower extremity of the 
alimentary canal is wanting in infancy, and must be preceded 
by an artificial sensibility in favour of the retention, of the 
excreta. 

The pleasurable and painful sensations of Smell come into 
relationship with the inhalation and exhalation of air by the 
nostrils. The initiatory coincidence is not with the action of 
the lungs alone, but with the closure of the mouth also. Such 
coincidences are necessarily rare, and all acquirements that 
pre-suppose them are tardy. The act of sniffing is probably 
not attained before the third or fourth year, and often then 
by the help of instruction. It would be interesting to ascer- 
tain the period of this acquirement in the dog. 

The sensations of Touch serving as antecedents in volition 
are numerous and important. The greater number, however, 
are of the class of intermediate sensibilities, as in the in- 
dustrial arts ; smoothing a surface, for example. The two 
great ultimate sensibilities of Touch, are the pleasure of the 
soft and warm contact, and the pain of pungent irritation of 
the skin. Both these are operative as volitional guides and 
stimuli, and, in both, connexions with definite movements, un- 
formed at first, arise in the course of our voluntary education. 

In the human infant, and in the infancy of the lower 
animals, the feeling of the warm contact with the mother is 
unquestionably a great power; the transition from the ab- 
sence to the presence of the state is second only to the 
stimulus of nourishment; the rise of vital activity corre- 
sponding to it is, in all likelihood, very great. Whatever 
movements tend to bring on or heighten this state, may 
expect to be encouraged by the consequent elation of tone. 
Now, these movements are part of the locomotive group, 
which spontaneity brings into frequent play : and coincidences 
will readily arise between them and the attained delight of 
contact; the young quadruped succeeds by locomotion, the 
infant by thrusting out its limbs at first, and afterwards by 
more difficult movements, as turning in bed. If there were 
any one definite movement that on all occasions determined 
the transition from the cold naked state to the warm touch, 
a very few spontaneous concurrences with that movement 
would cement an efiectual connexion. There is, however, 
scarcely any movement of this kind, suitable to all positions. 
One or two modes of attaining warmth are tolerably uniform, 
and therefore soon acquired ; as bringing the limbs close to 
the body. A somewhat complicated adjustment is needed in 



330 GROWTH OF VOLU^^TAKY POWER. 

most circnin stances, involving the external perception of the 
eye — namely, moving up to the warm body of the mother : 
the young quadruped learns the lesson in a short time; 
the l3ird is even more precocious ; while the human infant 
is very backward, and occapies weeks or months in the 
acquisition. 

The pungent and painful sensations of Touch include the 
case already touched on, the retraction of any part from the 
shock of pain. This remedy being a simple and nearly 
uniform action, of a kind ready to occur in the course of 
spontaneity, we may expect to find it associated with the 
painful feeling at a comparatively early date. So early do 
we find it, that we are apt to regard it as an instinct. The 
same class of sensations includes the discipline of the whip. 
As an acutely painful feeling, the smart of the whip has two 
conflicting effects ; it irritates the nerves, causing spasmodic 
movements, and it depresses vital power on the whole. If the 
stimulation of the smart predominates in a vigorous animal, 
the effect of the whip would be to increase activity in general ; 
hence if the animal is running', its speed is quickened. If the 
crushing effect of the pain predominates, the existing move- 
ments are arrested. Such are the primitive tendencies of an 
acute smart ; and even in the educated animal, the application 
of the whip is best understood if in harmony with these. To 
quicken a laggard, the acute prick, not severe, is the most 
directly efB.cacious course ; to quiet down a too active or 
prancing steed, a shock amounting to depression of power is 
more useful ; the curb has this kind of efficacy. To make 
the animal fall into a particular pace, the whip is used with 
the effect of stimulating movements, in the hope that a varia- 
tion may occur, and not merely an increase of degree : if the 
desired movement arise, the torment ceases ; the animal 
being supposed to connect mentally the movement with the 
cessation. A certain age must be attained before a horse 
will answer to discipline by changing its movements under 
the whip, and abiding by the one that brings immunity. It 
must have passed several stages beyond the instinctive situa- 
tion to arrive at this point. An interval has elapsed, during 
which the animal has learnt consciously to seek an escape 
from pain ; in point of fact to generalize its experiences of 
particular pains and particular movements of relief, and to 
connect any jpain with movements and the hope of relief. A 
certain progress, both physical and intellectual, is requisite to 
this consummation. 



FOLLOWING A LIGHT. 331 

The pleasures and pains of Sonnd liave little peculiarity. 
If a pleasant sound is heard, some movements will be found 
favourable to the effect, others adverse ; the first are likely to 
be sustained, the others arrested. An animal, with the power 
of locomotion, runs away from^ a painful sound ; the retreat 
being guided by the relief from the pain. A child learns to 
become still under a pleasant sound ; there is a felt increase 
in the pleasure from the fixed attitude, and a felt diminution 
from restlessness. 

In Sight, we have a remarkable example of sensations 
uniformly influenced by movements. The pleasure of light 
is very strong ; at all events, the attraction of the eye for a 
light is great. Indeed, this is a case where the stimulus given 
to the active members appears to exceed the pleasure of the 
sensation ; the eye is apt to remain fixed on a light even when 
the feeling has passed into pain, being a kind of aberration 
from the proper course of the will. I^ow, when the infant, 
gazing on a flame, is deprived of the sensation, by the motion 
of the light to one side, being at first unable to follow, for 
want of an established connection between the departing sen- 
sation and the requisite turn of the head, it must wait on ran- 
dom spontaneity for a lucky hit. Should a chance movement 
of the head tend to recover the flame, that movement will be 
sustained by the power of the stimulation ; movements that 
lose the light would not be sustained, but rather arrested. 
And, inasmuch as the same movement always suits the same 
case — the taking of the light to one side, being a definite 
optical efi'ect, and the motion of the head for regaining it 
being always uniform — the ground is clear for an early and 
rapid association between the two facts, the optical experience 
and the muscular movement. The situation is a very general 
one, applying to every kind of interesting spectacle, and in- 
volving a comprehensive volitional aptitude, the command of 
the visual organs at the instigation of visual pleasures. I 
have supposed the rotation of the head to be the first attained 
means of recovering objects shifted away from direct vision ; 
but the movements of the eyes themselves will sooner or later 
come into play. It is evident enough, however, from the 
observation of children, that the power of recovering a visible 
thing is not arrived at during the first months. 

This example is instructive in various ways. The con- 
nexion of a pleasurable stimulus with heightened power has 
been hitherto assumed as not restricted to muscular move- 
merit; but as comprising, in undefined proportions, both 



332 GROWTH OF VOLUNTAKY FOWEK. 

mnscnlar power and the organic functions. The acute smart, 
in its first or enlivening stage, may be affirmed with certainty 
to increase muscular energy, and to diminish the healthy vital 
functions. Perhaps the pungent stimulus of light is mainly 
expended on muscular augmentation ; which alone is of service 
in the forming of tbe will. 

Connected with sight is another case of great interest, the 
adjustment of the eye to changes of distance. The guiding 
sensation in this case is the distinctness of the image ; the 
infant must be aware of the difference between confused and 
clear vision, and must derive pleasure in passing from the one 
to the other. Under any theory of vision, Berkeleian or other, 
some time must elapse ere this difference be felt ; everything 
at the outset being confused. As soon as the sense of a clear 
image is attained, the child may enter on the course of con- 
necting the spontaneity of the adjusting muscles with the 
agreeable experience ; as in other cases, a confirming associa- 
tion may be expected to follow soon, the movements con- 
cerned being few and uniform. 

The foregoing review of the Sensations comprises several 
of the Appetites — Exercise, Repose, and Hunger. The feelings 
of approaching Sleep are very powerful, but the state is one 
that provides for itself, by pure physical sequence, Avithout 
special education. The resistance offered when one is pre- 
Tcnted from going to sleep, or is reluctantly awakened, is not 
a primitive manifestation ; the child only manifests discomfort 
by the appropriate emotional expressions. 

3. The second step in the growth of the Will is the 
uniting of movements with intermediate Ends. 

This supposes that a sensation, in itself indifferent, can 
awaken interest, by being the constant antecedent of some 
pleasure. Thus the sight of the mother's breast is indifferent 
as mere visual sensation ; but very soon allies itself in the 
infant mind with the gratification of being fed. This is a case 
of the contiguous transfer of a feeling, and is exemplified in 
all our powerful sensations and feelings. The lower animals 
are excited to their ntmost activity by the sight of their food 
or their prey; they are sufficiently intellectual to have a 
recollection of their own feelings, and to have that awakened 
by some associated object. Granting the possession of these 
transferred sensibilities, which make the acquirement of what 
is only a means, as exciting to the activities as the final end, 
the process of connecting these with the movements for attain- 



INTERMEDIATE ENDS. 333 

ing them is precisely the same as before. Thus the act of 
lifting a morsel to the miouth is urged in obedience to an inter- 
mediate end, and is urged with a degree of energy propor- 
tioned to the acquired force of that end. The infant is, after 
a time, excited to warm manifestations by the mere approach 
of a spoonful to its mouth. There is an ideal fruition in the 
very sight of the spoon coming nearer, with a corresponding 
elation of tone and* energy ; and when the young probationer 
is attempting the act for itself, there is a support given to 
successful movements, and a tendency to sink under obvious 
failure. The carrying of a morsel to the mouth is one of those 
definite and uniform movements so favourable to the process 
of volitional growth. It is, nevertheless, comparatively late, 
owing no doubt to the length of time occupied in the pre- 
paratory associations. 

4. Movements that have become allied with definite 
sensations, are thereby brought out, and made ready for 
new alliances. 

Spontaneity is supposed to be the earliest mode of bring- 
ing forward movements to be connected with feelings ; but 
when a number of connexions have been once formed, the 
connected movements are of more frequent occurrence, and 
are discovered to have new influences over the feelings. 
Locomotion, at first spontaneous, is rapidly allied with the 
animal's wants, and, being called out on the corresponding 
occasions, may coincide with new gratifications. Connected, 
in the early stages, with the search for food, it may be passed 
on to the alliance with shelter, with companionship, with 
safety, and other agreeables. Introductions are constantly 
made to new connexions, thus overcoming the initial difficulty 
of obtaining the necessary coincidences. 

5. Volition is enlarged, and made general, by various 
acquirements ; and first, the Word of Command. 

Instead of proceeding by detailed or piece-meal associa- 
tions with ends, or with pleasures and pains, the individual 
takes a higher step by forming connexions between all possible 
modes of movement, and a certain series of marks or indica- 
tions, through which the entire activity of the system may be 
amenable to control. 

The first of these methods is the Word of Command. In 
the discipline and training, both of animals and of human 
beings, names are applied to the different actions, and, even- 



334 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

tually, become the medium of evoking them. The horse is 
made to hear the word for halting, and at the same time is 
drawn in with the bridle ; in no very great number of repe- 
titions, the word alone suffices to cause the act. So in infants. 
By uttering names in connexion with their various move- 
ments, a means is given of evoking these movements at plea- 
sure. The child is told to open its mouth ; at first it does 
not know what is wished ; some other means must be used 
for bringing on the movement, which movement is then 
coupled in the mind with the name. The primordial urgency 
of pleasure and pain, — the one to promote, the other to arrest 
movement, — is the motive power at the outset ; and a name 
may become suggestive of these urgencies to the recollection, 
rendering them operative in the ideal form. The dog made 
to halt in the chase, by a word, is mentally referred by the 
word to the deterring pain of the whip. Also, in children, 
pain and pleasure, the first associates with actions, can have 
their motive force transferred to language, which is hence- 
forth a distinct power in singling out desired movements. 

6. Another instrumentality for extending volition is 
Imitation. 

It has often been alleged, and is perhaps commonly be- 
lieved, that Imitation is instinctive. The fact is otherwise. 
There is no ability to imitate in the new-born infant ; the 
power is a late and slow acquisition, and one especially fa- 
vourable for testing the general theory of the growth of will. 
Imitation (of what is seen) implies a bond of connexion be- 
tween the sight of a movement executed by another person, 
and the impulse to move the same organ in ourselves ; as in 
learning to dance. For vocal imitation, the links are between 
sensations in the ear, and movements of the chest, larynx, 
and mouth. The acquirement of articulate speech may be 
observed to take place thus. Some spontaneous articulation 
is necessary to begin with ; the sound impresses the ear, and 
possibly communicates an agreeable stimulus, the tendency of 
which would be to sustain the vocal exertion. At all events, 
there is the commencement of an association between an arti- 
culating effort or movement, and an effect on the ear. Every 
repetition strengthens the growing bond ; and the progress is 
accelerated when other persons catch up, and continue the 
sound. The attempt may now be made to invert the order, 
to make the articulatin<2f exertion arise at the instioation of 
the sound heard. This will not succeed at first ; an associa- 



IM1T.VTI0N. 335 

tion tmisfc be very firm in order to operate in the inverted 
order. Bat on some cbance occasion, after repeated urgency, 
the spontaneity comes round, and it being preceded by the 
characteristic sensation, the associating link is strengthened 
according to the imitative order ; and very soon the adhesion 
is complete. This process is gone through with several other 
articulations, and in the meantime, the voice becomes more 
ready to burst out at the hearing of articulate sounds, so that 
the trials are multiplied ; the correcting power being the felt 
coincidence with the sound proposed for imitation. The 
child told to say ta, will perhaps say na^ ma ; .at this period, 
however, it understands the tones of dissatisfaction expressed 
by others, if not aware of the discrepancy between its own 
performance and the model. ^ After a time, it will become 
alive to the success of the coincidence. The primordial stimuli 
of pleasure and pain, are still the agency at work ; spontaneity 
must precede ; association in time completes the connexion ; 
and an entirely new and distinct means is gained for deter- 
mining specific actions. 

The imitation of Pitch, the groundwork of the art of 
singing, goes through the same routine. A note spontaneously 
uttered impresses the ear with its pitch ; and an association 
is commenced between the special tension of the vocal muscles 
and that sensation ; which association goes on strengthening 
until the sound heard brings on the muscular eflfect. How 
rapid and complete this acquirement shall be, depends on the 
endowment of the ear, and on other circumstances already 
described. 

The imitation of Movements at sight comprises a large 
part of our early voluntary education. The course is still the 
same. Movements, from natural spontaneity, — of the arms, 
liands, fingers, and other visible parts, — must occur and be 
seen ; the active muscular impulses are united with the visible 
or ocular appearances; eventually, the appearances (as 
manifested by others) can evoke the active impulses. If any 
pleasure attends the feeling of successful coincidence, or if any 
pain is made to go along with the insufficient reproduction of 
the model, there is an appeal to the fundamental motives, for 
continuing the successful, and abandoning the unsuccessful 
acts. The child is urged to clap hands ; some movements are 
made, but not the proper ones ; the depression of ill-success 
leads to their cessation. Perhaps no others take their place 
on that occasion ; at another time, a more successful attempt is 
made, and the coincidence is agreeable ; the bent is sustained, 



336 GKOWTH OF VOLUNTAKY POWER. 

and an associating lesson given, nnder the stimnlns (so favonr- 
able to contiguous adhesion) of a burst of the elation of 
success. 

The volitional links, constituted in the acquirements of 
Imitation, are very numerous. They should have to be 
reckoned by hundreds, if not by thousands. A certain 
amount of Imitativeness belongs to animals. The young of 
many species are guided by the old in their early attempts. 
The characteristic of gregariousness follows the imitative 
power; there could be no community of action without this 
aptitude. 

7. A farther extension of the voluntary acquirenlents 
leads to the power of Acting upon the Wish to move. 

We caij rise up, stretch forth the hand, sound a note, from 
the mere wish to perform these acts, without the considera- 
tion of any ultimate end of pleasure sought or pain avoided. 
Not that such movements occur without some reference to the 
final ends of human action. We do not go through the pro-- 
cess called wishing, unless instigated by some motive, that 
is, in the last resort, some pleasure or pain. Moreover, we 
very seldom perform movement merely for the sake of moving ; 
we may show our ability to any one denying it, and then the 
motive is either the pleasure of power or the pain of humilia- 
tion — both highly efficacious as springs of action. Most 
usually when we move to a wish, it is the wish to gain some 
end, the action being the means ; as when thirsty, and-passing 
a spring of water, we will or wish to perform the movements 
for drinking. 

The link of association formed in order to confer voluntary 
power in this particular form, is the link between our idea of 
the movement and the movement itself; between the idea of 
raising the hand, and the act of raising it, there being a motive 
or urgency towards some end. The growth of this link is a 
step in advance of the imitative acquirement, and precisely in 
the same direction ; imitation supposes a connexion between 
a movement and the sight of that movement performed by 
another person, as the drill-master; acting from a wish to move 
is to perform the movement on the thought, idea, or recol- 
lection or the appearance of the movement ; the guiding cir- 
cumstance is the coincidence of the actual movement as seen 
with the ideal picture of it; when we raise the hand to a cer- 
tain height, w^e know that we have conformed to the idea 
given in our wish. 



MOVEMENT TO THE IDEA OF THE EFFKCT. 337 

This further acquisition, the following out of imitation, 
involves a large stock of ideal representations of all possible 
movements, gained during our own performance of these move- 
ments, and our seeing others perform them. We have ideas of 
opening and closing the hand, spreading the fingers, grasping 
and letting loose ; of putting the arms in all postures, and 
through varying degrees of rapidity. In acquiring those ideas 
we acquire also the links or connexions between them and the 
actual putting forth of the movements themselves ; and but 
for these acquired links, voluntary power in its most familiar 
exercise would be entirely wanting. We have ideas also of the 
motions of our legs and feet ; we form the wish to give a kick, 
and the power to fulfil the wish implies a link of association 
between the idea of the action, as a visible phenomenon, and 
the definite muscular stimuli for bringing the movement to 
pass. If no observation had ever been bestowed on the lower 
extremities, so as to arrive at this piece of education, the wish 
formed would be incompetent to create the act, notwithstandr 
ing the existence of a motive. 

8. Voluntary power is consummated by the association 
of movements with the idea of the Eficct to be produced. 

When we direct our steps across the street to a certain 
house, the antecedent in the m.ind is the idea of our entering 
that house. When we stir the fire, the antecedent is the idea of 
producing the appearance of a blazing mass, together with the 
sensation of warmth. When we carry the hand to the mouth, it 
is by virtue of a connexion between the movements and the 
idea of satisfying hunger and thirst. In writing, the idea of 
certain things to be expressed is connected directly with the 
required movements of the hand. 

Here we have a still more advanced class of associations. 
In accordance with the usual course of our progressive ac- 
quirements, intermediate links disappear, and a bridge is formed 
directly between what were the beginning and the end of a 
chain. The thing that we are bent on doing is what properly 
engages our attention ; success in that is the pleasurable 
motive, failure the painful motive ; exertion is continued 
until we succeed ; and an association is formed between the 
actions producing the end and the end itself. We come to a 
shut door ; the idea in the mind accompanied with the state of 
feeling that makes the motive, — a present want, prospective 
relief, — is the idea of that door open. Instead of thinking 
first of the movement of the hand in the act of opening, and 



338 GKOWTH OF VOLUNTARY POWER. 

proceeding from that to the action itself, we are carried at 
once from the idea of the open door to execute the movement 
of turning the handle. 

The examples recently dwelt on have been chiefly move- 
ments guided by Sight and ideas of sight. It is scarcely 
necessary to do more than allude to the case of Hearing. 
Vocal Imitation is the association of sounds heard with move- 
ments of the organs of voice. Vocalizing to a Wish involves 
a sufficient adhesion between a vocal exertion and the idea 
or recollection of the sound so produced, as when a musician 
pitches a note and commences an air ; or when a speaker 
gives utterance to words. These adhesions enter into the 
education of the individual in singing and in speaking, and 
are necessarily very numerous in a cultivated man or woman. 
Lastly, these associations are bridged over, and a link formed 
at once between movements of the voice and the idea of some 
end to be gained by its instrumentality ; as in raising the 
vx)ice to the shrill point for calling some one distant ; or as 
when, without having in mind the idea of the words * right 
face,' the officer of a company gives the word of command 
merely on the conception of the effect intended. 



CIIAPTEPv III. 

CONTEOL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 

1. As our voluntary actions consist in putting forth 
muscular power, the control of Feeling and of Thought is 
through the muscles. 

Hitherto we have seen, in the operation of the will, the 
exerting of definite, select, and, it may be, combined move- 
ments for the gaining of ends. We have spoken only of 
irmscular intervention in the attainment of our wishes. We 
have not even entertained as questions, whether the blood can 
circulate more or less rapidly, or the digestion accommodate 
itself, in obedience to pleasure and pain. In an emotional 
wave, there is a participation of organic change. A shock of 
pain deranges the organic functions ; pleasure, by the Law of 
Conservation, is accompanied with organic, no less than with 



VOLUNTARY CONTROL OPERATES THROUGH MUSCLES. 339 

muscular, vigour. So far as concerns the fundamental link 
expressed by this law, there might be an association of 
organic, as well as of muscular, changes with states of plea- 
sure and with states of pain; and often to the same good 
purpose : the augmentation of respiratory or of digestive 
vigour would directly heighten pleasure and abate pain. 
Notwithstanding all which facts, the muscular energies are 
alone selected for those definite associations with states of 
feeling which constitute the will. The power of movement 
stands alone in possessing the flexibility, the isolation, the inde- 
pendence, necessary for entering into the multifarious unions 
above detailed; and when we speak of voluntary control, 
we mean a control of the muscles. An explanation has, 
therefore, to be furnished of the stretching out of this control 
to feeling and to thought, which are phenomena more than 
muscular. 

CONTROL OF THE FEELINGS. 

2. The physical accompaniments of a feeling are (1) 
diffused nerve currents, (2) organic changes, and (3) 
muscular movements. The intervention of the will being 
restricted to movements, the voluntary control of the 
feelings hinges on the muscular accompaniments. 

Muscular diffusion being only one of three elements, we 
have to learn from experience whether it plays a leading, or 
only a subordinate part. There are various alternative sup- 
positions. The movements may be so essential, that their 
arrest is the cessation of the conscious state. Or the case 
may be that the other manifestations are checked by the 
refusal of the muscles to concur. Lastly, the movements may 
be requisite to the full play of the feeling, but not to its 
existing in a less degree, or in a modified form. 

Referring to the arbitration of experience, we find such 
facts as these. First, In a comparatively feeble excitement, 
the outward suppression leads, not immediately, but very 
soon, to the cessation of the feeling. There is at the outset 
a- struggle, but the refusal of the muscular vent seems to be 
the extinction of the other effects. The feeling does not 
cease at once with the suppression of the movements, showing 
that it can subsist without these ; but the stoppage of the 
movement being followed soon by the decay of the feeling, 
we infer that the other accompaniments, and especially the 
nerve currents, are checked and gradually extinguished under 
the muscular arrest. A shock of surprise, for example, if not 



340 CONTKOL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 

very powerful, can soon be quieted by repressing all the 
rnovements of expression. It is to be observed, however, 
that this is an emotion peculiarly muscular in its diflPusion ; 
the remark being far less true of the emotions that strongly 
affect the organic functions, as fear, tenderness, and pains 
generally. 

Secondly, In strong feelings, the muscular repression 
appears not merely to fail, but to augment the consciousness 
of the feeling, as if the nervous currents were intensified by 
resistance. A certain impetus has been given, and must find 
a vent, and, if restrained outwardly, it seems to be more 
violent inwardly. We are familiar with such sayings as the 
mind ' preying upon itself,' for want of objective display, the 
need of an outlet to the surcharged emotions, the venting of 
joy, or grief, and the like. 

The analogy of the weaker feelings makes it probable that, 
even with the stronger, muscu.lar resistance would ultimately 
quell the interior currents of the brain, together with the 
mental excitement. The difficulty is to find a motive sufficient 
to overcome the stimulus of a strong emotion. It may seem 
better to give way at once than to make an ineffectual resist- 
ance. A burst of anger might be suppressed by a strong 
muscular effort ; but the motive must be either powerful in 
itself, or aided by a habit of control. 

Thirdly, There is a certain tendency in the muscular 
expression of a feeling to induce the feeling, through the con- 
nexion established, either naturally or by association, between 
this and the other portions of the physical circles of effects 
(Sympathy, § 2). This supposes that there is no intense pre- 
occupation of the brain and mind ; we could not force hilarious 
joy upon a depressed system. Besides, it may be our wish 
merely to counterfeit, before others, an emotion that we do 
not wish to feel, as happens more or less with the player on 
the stage. 

3. The voluntary command of the muscles, as attained 
in the manner already described, is adequate to suppress 
their movements under emotion. 

When the will has reached the summit of general com- 
mand, as indicated in the preceding chapter, it is fit for any 
mode of exertion that can be represented to the mind ; the 
mere visible idea of the movement to be effected will single 
out the reality. The mature volition is thus competent to 
whatever efforts may be necessary for directing any of the 



EDUCATION m THK SUPPRESSION OF FEELINGS. 341 

muscles to move, or for restraining tlieir movement; all 
which, is applicable to the present case. 

But long prior to this consummation, an education for 
suppressing the feelings, or at least the manifestation of them, 
is usually entered on. It is desired, for example, to cause a 
child to restrain inordinate crying, at an age vfhen few volun- 
tary links have been forged, and when recourse must be had 
to the primitive starting point of all volition. In the very 
early stages, the absence of definite connexions between the 
pleasurable feeling and the suppression, and between the 
painful feeling and the indulgence, will lead to a great many 
fruitless attempts, as in all the beginnings of volition. A few 
successful coincidences will go far to fill up the blankness of 
the union between the motive impulses and the feelings in 
the special case ; and the progress may then be rapid. The 
remaining difficulty will be the violence of the emotional 
wave, which may go beyond the motive power of available 
pleasure or admissible pain, even although the link of con- 
nexion between these and the definite impulses is sufficiently 
plain. This, however, is the difficulty all through life, in the 
control of the more intense paroxysms of emotion, and has 
nothing to do with the immaturity of the volitional links 
between pleasurable or painful motives and the actions sug- 
gested for securing the pleasure and banishing the pain. 

The case is precisely analogous to the breaking in of 
colts, or the training of young dogs ; the want of determinate 
connexions gives much trouble in the commencing stages ; 
and as the deficiency is made up, the education proceeds 
apace. 

COMMAND OF THE THOUGHTS. 

4. It has been already considered (Compound Asso- 
ciation, § 8) in what way the will can inliuence the 
train of thoughts. The effect is due to the control of 
Attention. 

We cannot, by mere will, command one set of ideas to 
arise rather than another, or make up for a feeble bond of 
adhesion ; the forces of association are independent of voli- 
tion. But the will can control some of the conditions of 
intellectual recovery : one of which is the directing of the 
attention to one thing present rather than to another. In 
solving a geometrical problem, it is necessary to recall various 
theorems previously learnt ; for that purpose, the attention is 
kept fixed upon the diagrammatic construction representing 



342 CONTKOL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 

the problem, and is turned away from all other things ; in 
which attitude, the ideas suggested by contiguity and by 
similarity, are geometrical ideas more or less allied to the 
case in hand. 

The case now supposed is an exercise of voluntary atten- 
tion upon the muscles that guide the exercise of vision. The 
turning the eyes upon one part of the field of view, and not 
upon another, is a mode of voluntary control in no respect 
peculiar. 

5. The command of the Attention passes beyond the 
senses to the ideas or thoughts. Of various objects com- 
ing into recollection, we can ponder upon one to the 
neglect of the rest. The will has power over muscular 
movements in idea. 

It is a fact, that we can concentrate mental, no less than 
bodily, attention. When memory brings before us a string of 
facts, we can detain one and let the rest drop out of mind. 
Reviving our knowledge of a place, we are not obliged to go 
over the whole of it at an equal rate ; we are able, and are 
usually disposed, to dwell upon some features, and thereby to 
stop the current of farther resuscitation. 

In all this, the will seems to transcend the usual limits 
assigned to it, namely, the prompting of the voluntary 
muscles. Indeed, the fact would be wholly anomalous and 
inexplicable, but for the local identity of actual and of ideal 
movements (Contiguity, § 11) ; and even with that local 
identity, it is only from experience that we could be aware 
that voluntary control could enter the sphere of the ideal. 
When we are tracing a mountain in recollection, we are, in 
everything but the muscular contractions of the eye or the 
head, repeating the same currents, and re-animating the same 
nervous tracks, as in the survey of the actual mountain ; and, 
on the spur of a motive, we detain the mental gaze upon the 
top, the sides, the contour, the vegetation, exactly as in the 
real presence. 

6. This part of voluntary control has its stages of 
growth, like the rest ; and enters as an all-important 
element into our intellectual or thinking aptitudes. 

Two courses may be assigned for the acquisition of this 
higher control. It may follow, at some distance, the command 
of the corresponding actual movements ; or it may have to 
pass through an independent route, beginning with spon- 



VOLUNTARY CONTKOL OF THE THOUGHTS. 343 

taneity, and guided by the influence of pleasure and pain, 
under the Law of Conservation. In all probability, the first 
supposition is the correct one. We seem gradually to con- 
tract the power of menttil concentration, after having attained 
the command of the senses, — the ability to direct the eye 
wherever we please, or to listen to one sound to the disregard 
of others. Having the full outward command, a certain share 
abides with us, when we pass from realities to ideas, from the 
sight of a building to the thought of it. The ability thus 
possessed is doubtless strengthened by exercise in the special 
domain of the ideal ; a wide difference exists between the 
man that has seldom put forth the power of mental concentra- 
tion, and him that has been in the constant practice of it. 

Howsoever attained, the use of this power in intellectual 
production is great and conspicuous. Profuse reproduction, 
the result of observation and retentireness, is of little avail 
for any valuable purpose, whether scientific, artistic, or prac- 
tical, unless there be a power of selection, detention, and con- 
trol, on the spur of the end to be achieved. By such power 
of fixing attention, both on actual objects, and on the ideas 
arising by mental suggestion, we can make up for natural 
deficiencies, and, both in acquirements and in production, can 
pass over more highly gifted, but less resolute competitors. 
When the motives are naturally strong, and fortified by habit, 
we do not allow the attention, either bodily or mental, to 
wander, or to follow the lead of chance reproduction, as in a 
dream or reverie ; our definite purpose, whether to lay up a 
store of words, to master a principle, to solve a problem, to 
polish a work of taste, to construct a mechanical device, or to 
reconcile a clash of other men's wills, keeps the mind fixed 
upon whatever likely thoughts arise, and withdraws us at Once 
from what is seen to have no bearing on the work. 

When what is meant by ' plodding industry,' ' steadiness,' 
'application,' 'patience,' is opposed to natural brilliancy, 
facility, or abundance of ideas, it is, in other words, force of 
will displayed in mental concentration, as against the forces 
of mere intellectual reproduction ; two distinct parts of our 
constitution, following different laws, and unequall}^ mani- 
fested in different individuals. 

7. The voluntary command of the Thoughts has been 
formerly shown to enter into Constructive Association. 

In the illustrations under the preceding head, * construc- 
tiveness' has been involved ; but it deserves a more special 



344 CONTROL OF FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS. 

mention. The distlnguisliing feature of the process is a 
voluntary selection, adaptation, and combination, to suit some 
end ; the motive force of this end is the active stimulus, 
and the agreement with it, the guide or touchstone of all 
suggestions. In verbal constructiveness, for example, a cer- 
tain meaning is to be conveyed to another person ; a number 
of words spring up by memory, related to that meaning, but 
demanding to be selected, arranged, qualified, in order to 
suit it exactly. The revival of past trains of language 
through contiguity and similarity, or a combination of con- 
tiguities and similarities, provides the separate elements ; the 
will puts them together, under the sense of suitability; so 
long as that sense is dissatisfied, selection and adjustment 
must go on ; when the satisfying point is reached, the con- 
structive efforts cease. 

. 8. The command of the Thoughts is an adjunct in the 
control of the Feelings. 

The command over the thoughts is an exceedingly power- 
ful adjunct in the control of the Feelings ; being probably 
more efficacious than the voluntary sway of the muscular 
manifestations. Our emotions are more or less associated 
with objects, circumstances, and occasions, and spring up 
when these are present either in reality, or in idea ; affection 
is awakened at the sight or thought of what is lovely, or 
endeared to us ; fear is apt to arise when perils are brought to 
view. In this connexion lies the power of the orator and the 
poet to stir up the emotions of men. ]S"ow, we may ourselves, 
by force of will, entertain one class of thoughts, and disregard 
or banish another class. When a person has roused our anger 
by an injury, we can turn our thoughts upon the same per- 
son's conduct on other occasions, when of a nature to inspire 
love, admiration, or esteem ; the consequence of such a diver- 
sion of the ideas will be to suppress the angry feeling by its 
opposite. 

A fit of hilarious levity is difficult to quench by mere 
voluntary suppression of the muscular movements ; the more 
so that the diaphragm is a muscle not so well under command 
as the muscles of the limbs. A more powerful instrument in 
such a case would be the turning of the thoughts upon some 
serious or indifferent matter; and especially a painful or 
depressing subject. Persons guilty of levity during a religious 
address are usually reminded of the terrors of the unknown 
world. 



COMMAND OF THE FEELINGS THROUGH THE THOUGHTS. 345 

The conquering of one strong feeling by exciting another, 
was designated bj Thomas Chalmers, ' the expulsive power 
of a new afiection,' and was much descanted on by him as an 
instrumentality of moral improvement. When a wrong taste 
was to be combated, he recommended the process of displacing 
it by the culture of something higher and better ; as in sub- 
stituting for the excitement of the theatre, or the alehouse, 
intellectual and other attractions. 

Without the assistance of a new emotion, we may subdue 
or modify a present feeling, by carrying the attention away 
from all the thoughts or trains of ideas that cluster about it, 
and give it support. If we have strength of motive enough 
for diverting the mind from the thoughts of an alarming 
danger to some entirely different subject, the state of terror 
will subside. 

The command of the thoughts requisite for such diversions 
is a high and uncommon gift or attainment, one of the most 
distinguishing examples of force of will, or of power of motive. 
There is a limit to the control thus exercised ; no amount of 
stimulus will so change the current of ideas as to make joy at 
once supervene upon a shock of depression. Still, by a not 
unattainable strength of motive, and the assistance of habit, 
one can so far restrain the outbursts of emotion, as to make 
some approach to equanimity of life. 

9. The reciprocal case — the power of the Feelings to 
command the Thoughts — is partly of the nature of Will, 
partly independent of the will. 

When under a pleasurable feeling, we cling to all the 
thoughts, images, and recollections that chime in with, and 
sustain it — as in a fit of affection, of self-complacency, or of 
revenge — the case is one of volition pure and simple. By the 
direct operation of the fundamental power of self- conservation, 
every activity bringing pleasure is maintained and increased ; 
and the exercise of attention, whether upon the thino-s of 
sense or upon the stream of thought, is included in the prin- 
ciple. So, on the obverse side, a painful feeling ought to 
banish all the objects and ideas that tend to cherish it, just as 
we should remove a hot iron or a stinging nettle from the 
naked foot ; and this, too, happens to a great extent : a self- 
complacent man banishes from his mind all the incidents that 
discord with his pretensions; an engrossed lover will not 
entertain the thought of obstacles and inevitable separation. 
In both these cases, the law of the will is fairly and strictly 



346 MOTIVES, OK ENDS. 

exemplified. And if there were no other influence at work, if 
the feelings had no other mode of operating, we should find 
ourselves always detaining thoughts, according as they give 
us pleasure, and turning oar back upon such as produce pain, 
ivith an energy corresponding to the pain. 

But we have formerly remarked, and must presently notice 
still more particularly, that the feelings have another property, 
the property of detaining every idea in alliance with them, 
whether pleasurable or painful, in proportion to their intensity ; 
so that states of excitement, both painful and neutral, cause 
thoughts and images to persist in the mind" by a power apart 
from the proper course of the will. A disgusting spectacle 
cannot be at once banished from the recollection, merely 
because it gives pain ; if the wdll were the only power in the 
case, the object would be discarded and forgotten with promp- 
titude. But the very fact that it has caused an intense or 
strong feeling gives it a persistence, in spite of the will. So 
any powerful shock, characterized neither by pleasure nor by 
pain, detains the mind upon the cause of it lor a considerable 
time, and engrains it as a durable recollection, not because the 
shock was pleasurable, but merely because it was strong. The 
natural course of the will is pursued at the same time ; it co- 
operates in the detention of the pleasurable, and in reducing 
the persistence of the painful ; but it is not the sole or the 
dominant condition in either. 



CHAPTEE IV. 
MOTIVES, OR ENDS. 

1. Fiioivr the nature or definition of Will, pure and 
proper, the Motives, or Ends of action, are our Pleasures 
and Pains. 

In the Feelings, as formerly laid out, if the enumeration 
be complete, there ought to be found all the ultimate motive 
or ends of human action. The pleasures and pains of the 
various Senses (with the Muscular feelings), and of the 
Emotioi;is, — embracing our whole susceptibility to happiness 
or misery, — are, in the last resort, the stimulants of our 



MOTIVES FKOM OUR PLEASUEES AND PAINS. 347 

activity, the objects of pursuit and avoidance. The actual 
presence of any one of the list of pleasures, set forth under 
the different departments of Feelings, urges to action for its 
continuance ; the presence of any one of the included pains 
is a signal to action for its abatement. The final classification 
of Motives, therefore, is the classification of pleasurable and 
painful feelings. 

If we were to recapitulate what has been gone over, under 
the Senses and the Emotions, we should refer to the pleasures 
of Muscular Exercise and Repose, and the pains of Fatigue 
and of Restrained action ; the great variety of pleasurable 
and painful susceptibilities connected with Organic Life — in- 
cluding such powerful solicitations as Thirst, and Hunger, 
and the whole catalogue of painful Diseases, with the re- 
actionary condition named Health ; the numerous stimulations, 
pleasurable and painful, of the Five Senses — Tastes, Colours, 
Touches, Sounds, Sights ; the long array of the Special 
Emotions, containing potent charms and dread aversions — 
IN'ovelty, Liberty, Tender and Sexual Emotion, Self-com- 
placency and Approbation, with their opposites ; the elation 
of Power and the depression of Impotence and Littleness, the 
Interest of Plot and Pursuit, the attractions of Knowledge, 
and the variegated excitements of Fine Art. 

2. The elementary pleasures and pains incite us to 
action, when only in prospect ; which implies an ideal per- 
sistence approaching to the power of actuality. 

The property of intellectual or ideal retention belongs 
more or less to all the feelings of the mind ; and has been 
usually adverted to in the description of each. The pain of 
over-fatigue is remembered after the occasion, and has a 
power to deter from the repetition of the actual state. 

The circumstances regulating the ideal persistence of 
pleasures and pains, so as to give them an ef&cacy as motives, 
are principally these : — 

(1) Their mere Strength, or Degree. It is a law of our 
intellectual nature that, other things being the sam-C, the 
more vivid the present consciousness, the more it will persist 
or be remembered. This applies to pleasures, to pains, and 
to neutral excitement. A strong pleasure is better remembered 
than a weak ; a greater pain is employed in punishment, be- 
cause a less, being insufB.cient!y remembered, is ineffectual to 
deter from crime. Our labours are directed, in the first place, 
to the causes of our great pleasures and our great pains, be- 



348 MOTIVES, OR ENDS. 

cause these are more tenaciously held in the memory, and 
less liable to be overborne by the pressure of the actual. 
The acute sensual pleasures, affection, praise, power, aesthetic 
charm, are strongly worked for, because strongly felt, and 
strongly remembered ; the more intense pains of disease, pri- 
vation, disgrace, have an abiding efficacy because of their 
strength. 

(2) Continuance and Repetition. The longer a pleasure is 
continued, and the oftener it is repeated, the better is it retained 
in absence as a motive to the will. It is the same with emo- 
tional states as it is with intellectual — with pain as with 
language, iteration gives intellectual persistence. A single 
attack of acute pain does not leave the intense precautionary 
motive generated by a series of attacks. Age and experience 
acquire moral wisdom, as well as intellectual ; strength of 
motive as well as extent and clearness of intellectual vision. 
After repeated failures, we give up a chase, in spite of its 
allurements ; not merely because our hopes are weakened, but 
also because our recollection is strengthened, by the repeti- 
tion. Pleasures seldom tasted may not take their proper rank 
with us, in our habitual pursuits ; we do not work for them in 
proportion to what we should actually gain by their fruition. 

It necessarily happens that distance of time allows the 
memory of pleasure and pain to fade into imbecility of motive. 
A pleasure long past is deprived of its ideal enticement ; a 
pain of old date has lost its volitional sting. 

(3) Intellectual Eank. The feelings have a natural scale 
of intellectual persistency, commencing from the organic or 
physical sensibilities, and rising to the higher senses, and the 
more refined emotions. The sensations of hearing and 
sight ; the pleasures of tender feeling, of complacency, of 
intellect, of Fine Art ; the pains of grief and of remorse, — are 
in their nature more abiding as motives than muscular exer- 
cise, or occasional indigestion. 

(4) Special Endowment for the memory of Pleasure and 
Pain. It is a fact that some minds are constituted by nature 
more retentive of plea&ures and pains than others; just as 
there are differences in the memory for language or for spec- 
tacle. A superior degree of prudence, under circumstances 
in other respects the same, is resolvable into this fact. JSTo 
one is unmoved by a present delight, or a present suffering ; 
but when the reality is vanished, the recollection will be 
stronger in one man than in another — that is^ will be more 
powerful to cope with the new and present urgencies that 



EEMEMBERED FEELINGS. 349 

put to the proof our memory given motives. The pains of 
incautious living are, in some minds, blotted out as soon as 
they are past ; in others, they are retained with almost un- 
diminished force. Both Prudence, and the Power of Sym- 
pathy with others, presuppose the tenacious memory for 
pleasures and pains ; in other words, they are fully accounted 
for by assuming that speciality. Virtue, although not Know- 
ledge, as Sokrates maintained, reposes on a property allied to 
Intellect, a mode of our Retentiveness, the subject matter 
being, not the intellectual elements commonly recognized, 
but pleasures and pains. 

It is not easy to refer this special mode of Hetentiveness 
to any local endowment, as we connect the memory for 
colour with a great development of the optical sensibility. 
Most probably, the power is allied to the Subjectivity of the 
character, the tendency to dwell upon subject states, as 
opposed to the engrossment of objectivity. 

Prudential forethought and precaution in special things 
may be best referred to the greater strength and repetition 
of the feelings ; as when a man is careful of his substance 
and not of his reputation ; or the converse. On whatever 
subjects we feel most acutely, we best remember our feelings, 
and yield to them as motives of parsuit and avoidance. It 
is unnecessary to invoke, for such differences, a general 
retentiveness for pleasures and pains. 

(5) In the effective recollection of feelings, for the pur- 
poses of the will, we are aided by collateral associations. 
Any strong pleasure gives impressiveness to all the acts and 
sensations that concurred with it; and these having their 
own independent persistency, as actions or as object states, 
aid in recovering the pleasure. Every one remembers 
the spot, and the occupation of the moment, when some 
joyful news was communicated. The patient in a surgical 
operation retains mentally the indelible stamp of the room 
and the surgeon's preparations. One part of the complex 
experience, so impressed, buoys up the rest. 

It is scarcely necessary to add that the motive power of a 
feeling of recent occurrence partakes of the effectiveness of 
the actuality. 

3. We direct our labours to many things that, though 
only of the nature of Means, attain by association all the 
force of our ultimate ends of pursuit. Such are Money, 
Bodily Strength, Knowledge, Formalities, and Virtues. 
17 



350 MOTIVES, OR ENDS. 

When any one object is constantly associated with a 
primary end of life, it acquires in our mind all the importance 
of the end ; fields, and springs of water, are prized with 
the avidity belonging to the necessities of life. The great 
comprehensive means, termed wealth or Money, when its 
powers are understood, is aimed at according to the sum 
of the gratifications that it can bring, and of the pains that 
it can ward off, to ourselves and to the sharers in our sym- 
pathies. Such at least is the ideal of a well-balanced mind ; 
for few persons follow this or any other end, mediate or 
ultimate, according to its precise value. 

We bave seen that a memory unfaithful to pleasure and 
pain misguides us in our voluntary pursuit of ends ; not merely 
allowing the present to lord it over the future, but evincing 
partiality or preference as between things equally absent and 
ideal. The intervention of the associated ends leads to new 
disturbances in our estimate, and in the corresponding pur- 
suit. The case of Money exemplifies these disturbing causes. 
In it, we have the curious fact of a means converted into a 
final end. 

When anything has long been an object of solicitude from 
its bearing on the ultimate susceptibilities of the mind, the 
pleasure of its attainment corresponds to its influence on those 
susceptibilities. Without proceeding to realize the purchas- 
able delights of money, we have already a thrill of enjoyment 
in the acquisition of it ; the more so if we have felt such 
pains as physical privation, toil, impotence, indignity, tastes 
forbidden, with the aggravation of multiplied fears. The 
sense of being delivered from all this incubus, is a rebound, 
delightful in itself, before proceeding to convert the means 
into the final ends. Many ideal jpsiius are banished at once by 
the possession of the instrument unused. There arises in 
minds prone to the exaggeration of fear, a reluctance to part 
with this wonderful sense of protection ; which, alone would 
suggest the keeping, rather than the spending, of money. 
When we add the feeling of superiority over others attaching 
to the possession and the possible employment of money, and 
farther the growth of a species of afiection towards w4iat has 
long occupied the energies, and given thrills of delight, we 
shall understand the process of inversion whereby a means 
becomes a final end. We should also take into account, in 
the case of money, its definite and numerical character, giving 
a charm to the arithmetical mind, and enabling the possesse:p 
to form a precise estimate of his gains and his total. 



ASSOCIATED ENDS. 35l 

Similar obsei*vations apply to the other associated ends. 
Health is nothing in itself; it is a great deal as a means to 
happiness. To this extent, and no farther, the rational mind 
will pursue it ; we should only be losers, if, in seeking health, 
we surrendered the things that make life agreeable. The pre- 
vailing error, however, is the other way. The retentiveness 
for the pains and discomforts of ill- health, and for the enjoy- 
ments thereby forfeited, is not good enough in the mass of 
men ; and needs to be re-inforced by inculcation and reflection. 

Like Money, Knowledge is liable to become an end in 
itself. Principally valuable as guidance in the various opera- 
tions of life, as removing the stumbling blocks, and the terrors 
of ignorance, it contracts in some minds an independent 
charm, and gathers round it so many pleasing associations as 
to be a satisfying end of pursuit. The knowledge of many 
Languages is an immense toil and an incumbrance ; but the 
sense of the end to be served gives them a value, which some 
minds feel in an exaggerated degree. 

The Formalities of Law, of Business, and of Science are 
indispensable as means, worthless as ends. Not unfrequently, 
persons become enamoured of them to such an extent as to 
sacrifice the real ends on their account. The explanation is 
much the same as already given for the love of money. 

Justice and Truth are generally held to be ends in them- 
selves ; but when we enquire more minutely into their bearings, 
we find that their importance is sufficiently justified by their 
instrumentality to other ends. If Justice were perfectly in- 
different to human happiness, no nation would maintain 
Judges and Law Courts ; and if Truth were of no more service 
than falsehood, Science would be unknown. But as both these 
qualities are entwined with human welfare -at every turning, 
it being impossible for the human race to exist without some 
regard to them, we cannot wonder that they attract our 
solicitude, and that we have a lively satisfaction in contem- 
plating their triumph. The emotion of terror attaches us 
strongly, perhaps even in an exaggerated degree, to the 
Security conferred by Justice, among other good social 
arrangements ; and we sometimes cling to a mere figment 
because it once represented this great attribute. 

4. The Motives to the Will are swayed and biassed by 
the Persistence of Ideas. 

Allusion has repeatedly been made to the intellectual pro- 
perty of all feelings, whereby they persist in the mind, and 



352 MOTIVES, OR ENDS. 

give persistence to the ideas and objects related to them. 
According to the degree of the excitement, and irrespective of 
its quality — as pleasure, pain, or nentral feeling — is the hold 
that it takes of the present consciousness, and imparts to the 
thoughts allied with it. The germ of the property is seen in 
the stimulation of the senses, more particularly sight, as when 
we involuntarily keep the eye fixed upon a light, even pain- 
fully intense. The infatuation of the m.oth is the crowning 
instance of the power of sensation, as such, to detain and con- 
trol the movements ; for although the distant flame may not 
be painfully intense, the singed body ought to neutralize any 
pleasure that the light can give. 

A pleasurable feeling, besides moving the will, detains the 
thoughts, not simply as pleasure, but as excitement. This 
would be all right, if every such state were purely and solely 
pleasurable. But when we examine closely our very best 
pleasures, we find that, in all of them, more or less, the drops 
of pure delight are mingled with a quantity of mere excite- 
ment. Any great pleasure is sure to leave behind it an 
enduring state of neutral feeling, the pleasurable part of the 
wave subsiding long before the general tremor has ceased. 
But while there is excitement, there is detention and occu- 
pation of mind, and the exclusion of unrelated subjects and 
ideas. In an agreeable marvel, there is a small burst of 
genuine pleasure, but a still wider and more lasting state of 
excitement. 

Hence our .pleasurable emotions are all liable to detain the 
mind undul}^, as regards our proper gratification. Thus, the 
pleasures of the tender emotion, if at all strong, are sur- 
rounded with an atmosphere of still stronger excitement ; and 
the objects of our afiection are apt to persist in the mind 
beyond the degree of the pleasure they give us, although in 
some proportion to that pleasure. The mind of the mother 
is arrested and held partly by the strong pleasures of mater- 
nity, and partly by the ' Fixed Idea ' consequent on the still 
greater amount of agitation that she passes through. In the 
sexual feelings, there is the like mixture of pleasure and 
fixed idea, carrying the mind beyond the estimate of pleasure 
and pain, to the state named 'passion.' The pleasures of 
Power and Ambition are liable to the same inflammatory and 
passionate mixture. A man may be highly susceptible to the 
delights of power, without being passionately so, if he is 
moved solely by the strict value of that pleasure, and not by 
the engrossing power of the excitement so apt to invest any 



THE KATIONAL PUKSUIT OF ENDS THWAKTED. 353 

real pleasure. The gratification of revenge is a real pleasure, 
but the allied excitement is something still stronger ; the 
idea of the revenge possesses the mind so strongly, that, to 
act it out, we will sacrifice more than the value of the pleasure 
accruing from it. In this passion especially, our happiness 
would often lie in forgetting the whole circumstances ; but 
under excitement, the balancing of good and evil is impos- 
sible. We must execute whatever thought the mind at that 
moment, in the heat of feeling, exclusively entertains. 

The operation is seen in still bolder relief in the painful 
feelings. As already remarked, the proper action of the will, 
having regard to our greatest good, would banish the thought 
of a disgust, or a blow, or a discord ; but the excitement 
engendered is a force to detain the disagreeable subject. We 
are often haunted for life by some great and painful shock 
persisting in the memory in virtue of its intensity. 

The extreme instance of irrational and morbid persistence 
is shown in Fear. It is the nature of that passion to take an 
excessive hold of the intellectual trains ; everything that has 
ever been accompanied with the perturbation of fear has 
contracted an undue persistence, baffling and paralyzing the 
operation of the will. Our greatest pleasures are liable to 
plunge us into fears ; the pleasurable emotions above named, 
as for example the maternal feeling, have their moments of 
serious alarm and their protracted states of solicitude. 

The rational pursuit of ends is thus liable to many 
thwartings. The imperfect recollection of pleasures and 
pains, the tendency to substitute the means for the ends, the 
undue persistence of objects through emotion — are all against 
us. To these circumstances, we must add some others. 
First, our insuflB.cient experience of good and evil, especially 
in early years, disqualifies us from judging of the comparative 
value of different objects of pursuit ; the youthful predi- 
lections for this or that profession must needs be founded on 
a very inexact estimate. In the second place, many kinds of 
good and evil are only jprobable in their advent ; such as the 
attainment of an ofBce, the success of an enterprise, good or 
ill health. This introduces a totally new consideration to 
complicate the operation of our motives. The heau ideal of 
rationality consists in pursuing all objects with reference to 
the probability of their attainment ; but probability is liable 
to the flactuating estimates of hope and fear; states that 
are governed partly by the intelligence and partly by the 
feelings. 



354 CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 

In the last place, our Habits are often opposed to tlie 
rational estimate of good or evil. 'Not merely what we term 
bad habits, which are irrational impulses confirmed by repe- 
tition, but conduct at first well calculated for our interests 
may, through change of circumsfcances, operate against our 
happiness on the whole ; just as laws, originally good, may 
be continued when they have become noxious. The habit of 
saving may deprive us, in old age, of essential comforts ; the 
habit of deference to others may prove hostile to our comfort 
when we come to a position of command. 

These various considerations are of special importance in 
preparing the way for the great ethical question as to the 
existence of disinterested motives in the human mind. 



CHAPTEE V. 
THE CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 

1. When two pleasures concur, the result is a greater 
pleasure ; when a pleasure concurs with a pain, the greater 
will neutralize the less, leaving a surplus. 

As mere emotions, concurring pleasure and pain neutralize 
each other ; and in this way, pain is frequently stified before 
acting as a motive to the will. To procure an assuaging plea- 
sure is a way of dealing with a pain, no less efiectual than 
removing the cause by voluntary exertions. In one class of 
minds, the pains of life are met by tenderness, grief, sorrow, 
sympathy, by venting them in language, and by other 
emotional manifestations ; and not by measures of prevention 
or extirpation. Such minds are the profusely emotional ; and 
are in marked contrast with another class, the active or 
volitional, whose peculiarity it is to take active proceedings 
to cut off the sources of the evil. 

2. The natural Spontaneity of the system may come 
into conflict with the proper Motives to the Will. 

Spontaneity is a power all through life. The times of re- 
newed vigour, after rest and nourishment, are times when the 
system is disposed to active exertion ; when this is refused, 
there ensues a conflict. The young, being most exuberant in 



CONFLICT WITH SPONTANEITY. 355 

activity, burst out incontinently at those moments, unless 
withheld by very powerful motives. This is one of the 
impulses that require a severe discipline, in the shape of strong 
counter-motives. The force of the spontaneity and the force 
of the counter-motives are then measured against each other, 
and we call the one that succeeds stronger, having no other 
criterion of comparative strength. 

When the activity is unduly stimulated, as by drugs, by 
pungent sensations, or by quick movements, it is so much the 
greater a power, and needs a greater motive to curb it. We 
see this in the restlessness of children in their violent sports ; 
the natural activity is heightened by stimulation, and made 
harder to resist ; quiescence is doubly repugnant. 

A periodical tendency to action, the result of habit, would 
operate in the same way ; as this is sometimes in opposition to 
the other motives, there is conflict, and the successful side is 
called the stronger, 

3. Exhaustion, and natural inaction of the powers, are 
a bar to the influence of Motives. 

This is the same fact in obverse. When the system is 
exhausted or physically indisposed, — its spontaneity and avail- 
able energy past, — a more than ordinary motive is required to 
bring on exertion. The jaded horse needs more spurring. 
The exhausted mountain guide can be got to proceed only by 
the promise of an extra fee. Napoleon took his men across the . 
Alps by plying them with the rattle of the drums when every- 
thing else failed. 

4. In the conflicts of Opposing Volitions, properly so 
called, we may consider first the case of two Motives in 
the Actual. 

Two actual pains or pleasures sometimes incite in opposite 
ways. An animal maybe fatigued and also hungry; the one 
state prompting to rest, the other to exertion. We judge of the 
stronger motive by the result. A person may feel the pain of 
indoor confinement, but may decline the disagreeable alterna- 
tive of cold and wet. In company, we may be solicited by 
spectacle, by music, by conversation ; one gains the day, and 
is pronounced the greater pleasure, or at least the stronger 
motive. 

One might continue, without end, to cite these conflicts of 
actual sensation or emotion, appending the uniform conclusion 
that the upshot is the test of the stronger motive. The instruc- 



356 CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 

tion derivable from each observation of this kind is a fact in 
the character of the person, or the animal, observed ; we find 
out the preferences, or comparative susceptibility of different 
persons, or of the same person at different times. 

We are to pi-esume, in the absence of any indications to 
the contrary, that the stronger motive in the shape of actual 
and present sensation or emotion, is the greater pleasure, or 
the smaller pain. Pleasure and pain, in the actual or real ex- 
perience, are to be held as identical v^ith motive power. If a 
man is laid hold of and detained by music, we must suppose 
that he is pleased to that extent. The disturbances and 
anomalies of the will scarcely begin to tell in the actual feel- 
ing. Any one crossing the street direct, through dirty pools, 
is inferred to have less pain from being splashed than from 
being delayed. 

This remark is of importance in furnishing us with a clue 
to the pleasures and pains of other beings. The voluntary 
preferences of individuals, when two actual pleasures or pains 
are weighed together, show which is the greater in their case. 
An object that weighs as nothing in stimulating the will for 
attainment, is to be held as giving no pleasure ; if, on the 
other hand, it never moves to aversion or avoidance, it is not 
a source of pain. The pleasures and pains of men and of 
animals are indicated with considerable fidelity by their volun- 
tary conduct, and especially when the comparison is made 
upon the present or the actual experience. We have few 
means of judging of the feelings of the lower animals ; they 
have but a narrow range of emotional expression ; and we are 
driven mainly to the study of their actions in pursuit or 
avoidance. We can see .that a dog relishes a meal, and 
runs from a whipping. The lower we descend, the more do 
we lose the criterion of emotional expression, and depend 
upon the preference of action. There may be a certain am- 
biguity even in this test ; the influence of light, for example, 
works to the extent of fascination, and so may other feel- 
ings. Probably this is an exceptional case ; at all events, if 
the test of the will is invalid, we have nothing beyond it to 
appeal to. 

There are certain allowances that we can easily make in 
the application of the will as a test of strength of feeling. 
We should observe the influence of a motive under all variety 
of states, as to vigour, rest, nourishment, so as to eliminate 
difference in the active organs. We should weigh each 
motive against every other, and thus check our estimate by 



PAINS AND PLEASUEES IN THE ACTUAL. 357 

cross comparisons ; in this way, we can establish for each 
individual a scale of preferences, and obtain a diagnosis of 
emotional character. 

The comparison of one person with another requires an 
estimate to be made of the active disposition as a whole, or the 
pr oneness to active exertion generally. This may be gathered 
from the spontaneity, from the disposition to act for the sake 
of acting, and from all cases where we have an independent 
clue to the strength of a motive, as pleasure or pain. Two 
persons may be equally pained by an acute ailment ; while 
the one bestirs himself for relief and the other remains idle. 
If we except a greater proneness in some organs than in 
others, as vocal exuberance combined vyith general sluggishness, 
the active disposition is a single fact, a unity or totality ; the 
feelings are many and unequal. One statement will give the 
volitional character as a whole ; the estimates of the motives 
are as numerous as our distinct sensibilities. 

5. When the conflict is between the Actual and the 
Ideal, the result depends on the more or less vivid recol- 
lection of pleasure and pain. 

This opens up a much wider sphere of conflict. Our 
voluntary determinations are most frequently the preference 
of an actual feeling to an ideal one, or the converse. We 
refuse a pleasurable relish, because of subsequent organic pains 
abiding in the recollection. An ideal motive owes its power 
not to the strength of the original feeling alone, but to that 
coupled with all the circumstances tending to make it persist 
in the memory. A young man and an old may be equally 
pained by an overdose of alcohol, but the elder has the best 
recollection of the pain, while the younger has the farther 
disadvantage of a keener present delight. Yet, when the 
natural endowment favours the retentiveness of pain and plea- 
sure, we shall find youth temperate, and age a victim to pre- 
sent allurement. In this class of examples, the conditions are 
various and often perplexing. Suppose the case of a thief by 
profession, whose prospects in life are infamy and penal ser- 
vitude. There are the following alternative explanations of 
his choice. His mental peculiarities may be assumed to be, 
the usual liking for the common enjoyments of life ; an aver- 
sion to industry ; a small ideal estimate of the yet unexperi- 
enced pains of punishment ; and perhaps, also, a sanguine 
temperament that under-estimates the probabilities of capture. 
Suppose him to pass through a first imprisonment. A new 



358 CONFLICT OF MOTIVES. 

and powerful motive is now introduced, an ideal repugnance, 
which ought to have great strength, if the punishment has 
told upon him. Should he not be reformed by the experience, 
we must assume the motives already stated at a still higher 
figure. We must also suppose, what is probably true of the 
criminal class generally, a low retentiveness for good and 
evil — the analytic expression of Imprudence ; perhaps the 
most radically incurable of all natural defects. 

The theory of Prison Discipline is based on such con- 
siderations as the following. In short imprisonments, the 
pains should be acute, so as to abide in the memory, and en- 
gender an intense repugnance. Loss of liberty, solitude and 
seclusion, regular work, and unstimulating food can be borne, 
for a short period, if there is little sense of the indignity and 
shame of goiug to jail. A brief confinement is the mild cor- 
rective suited to a first ofience ; which failing, there is needed 
an advance in severity. Recourse should next be had to the 
acute inflictions ; which are principally whipping and mus- 
cular pains. The muscular pains are administered in various 
forms ; as the tread wheel, the crank, extra drill, shot drill, 
and a newly devised punishment, introduced into the Scotch 
prisons, and said to be very deterring — the guard bed. With 
a view to increase the impressiveness of these severe applica- 
tions, they should not be continued daily, but remitted for a 
few days ; the mind having leisure in the interval to contem- 
plate alike the past and the future, while the body is refreshed 
for the new infliction. 

Long imprisonment and penal servitude are made deterring 
chiefly through the deprivation of liberty ; to which are added, 
the withdrawing of the subject from the means of crime, and 
the inuring to a life of labour. Perhaps the defect of the 
system is the too even tenor of life, which does not impress 
the imagination of the depraved class with sufficient force. 
Occasional acute inflictions, would very much deepen the 
salutary dread of the condition ; and are not uncalled for in 
the case of hardened criminals. The convict's yearly or half- 
yearly anti-holiday, would impart additional horror and gloom 
to his solitary reflections, and might have a greater influence 
on the minds of the beginners in crime. 

6. The Intermediate Ends — Money, Health, Know- 
ledge, Power, Society, Justice, &c. — enter, as motives, 
into conflict with the nltimate ends, Actual or Ideal, and 
with one another. 



MOTIVE FORCE OF lOTEKMEDIATE ENDS, 359 

It lias been seen wliat circumstances govern the motive 
force of the intermediate ends ; the value of the ultimate plea- 
sures and pains involved being only one, although the pro- 
perly rational, estimate of their worth. These ends have all 
a certain motive power in every intelligent mind, sometimes 
too little and sometimes too great. When present ease and 
gratification is confronted with prospective wealth, or know- 
ledge, or position, we see which is the stronger. Great relish 
for actual ease and pleasure ; great repugnance to money-get- 
ting exertion ; a feeble memory for the pleasures that money 
can purchase, or the pains it can relieve ; the absence of 
occasions of fear and solicitude in connexion with penury ; no 
affectionate interest contracted with wealth, through the pur- 
suit of ifc — would constitute a character too little moved to 
the acquisition of money fortune- as a reversed state of the 
motives might lead to an excessive pursuit. 

It is a rule, easily explicable on the principles laid down, 
that intermediate ends, — Wealth, Health, Knowledge, &c. — 
are too weak in early life, while in advancing years, they be- 
come too strong, in fact supersediug the final ends. One 
reason of this last effect is that the ultimate pleasures of 
sense count for less in later life, while ideal gratifications, 
original or acquired, count for more ; money and knowledge, 
having' contracted a factitious interest of the ideal kind, 
are still sought for that, when the primary interests have 
ceased ; and the more so, that the active pursuit in their 
service, has become a habit, and a necessity. 

7. The Persistence of Ideas, through emotional excite- 
ment, counts in the conflict of Motives, and constitutes a 
class of Impassioned or Exaggerated Ends. 

Undue persistence of ideas is most strongly exemplified in 
Fear. Any evil consequence that has been able to rouse our 
alarms, acquires an excessive fixity of tenurCj and overweighs 
in the conflict of motives. This has been seen to be one of 
the exaggerating conditions of avarice. So, from having 
been a witness of revolutions, a susceptible mind takes on a 
morbid dread of anarchy and a revulsion to change. The 
care of health may assume the character of a morbid 
fixed idea, curtailing liberty and enjoyment to an absurd 
degree. The apprehensions of maternal feeling are apt to be 
exaggerated. 

Yanity, Dignity, love of Power, are often found in the im- 
passioned form, in weak minds. The extreme case of the fixed 



360 DELIBERATION.— KESOLUTION. — EFFOKT. 

idea in general, and of the morbid predominance of these 
ideas in particular, occurs in the insane. 

Sj^mpathy, in its pare and fundamental character, is the 
possession of an idea, followed out irrespective of pleasure or 
pain, although these are more or less attached to its usual 
exercise. In the conflict of motives, this principle of action 
plays an important part ; its predominance is the foremost 
motive to virtuous conduct. It subsists upon a vivid percep- 
tion of the pain or misery of others ; a perception more or 
less acute by nature or by education, and susceptible of being 
inflamed by oratory. The sympathies of individuals are gene- 
rally piiitial or select ; powerful to some modes of misery and 
inert to others. The conflicts of sympathy are with the purely 
egotistic pleasures of each individual ; these last, when un- 
naturally strong, as in the child, are unequally met by the 
sympathetic impulses. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

DELIBERATIOK—EESOLUTIOjST.— EFFORT. 

1. In the prolonged v/eighing of motives, termed 
Deliberation, the suspense is a voluntary act, prompted 
by the remembered pains of acting too quickly. 

Among our painful experiences, is the evil effect of acting 
hastily on the first motive that arises. At an early stage of 
education, we gratify hunger with whatever looks like food ; 
we give to him that asketh, and believe whatever any one 
tells us. After a little time, we discover that the fruit of such 
impulses is often bad; that other motives, such as might 
change our conduct, would arise to our minds if we refrained 
from immediate action, and gave time to the intellect to 
suggest them. A deterring motive of the Intermediate class 
is thus created, and at its instigation, we fall into the attitude 
called Deliberation, which consists in pausing, waiting, ru- 
minating, till other considerations rise to the view, and are 
confronted with one another, and with the first impulse. 

We have, in this case, a conflict between some present 
impulse, some pleasure or pain, actual or ideal, that has risen 
before the mind, and the highly intellectual or ideal pain con- 



EVIL OF PRECIPITATE ACTION. 361 

stituted by former experience of tlie pains of immediately- 
giving way to a motive stimulus. The deliberating impulse 
is the creature of education, growing with repeated examples 
of mischief, and at last triumphant in all conflicts with hasty 
promptings. 

The same experience that induces delay, to give time for 
all the motives that arise, farther urges us not to protract the 
suspense too long. "We know what amount of deliberation 
will ordinarily sufS.ce to get out both sides of a case; to allow 
less and to allow more are mischievous, and the prospect of 
the mischief deters from the one and from the other. Most 
people defer answering an important letter, for at least one 
day; perhaps the case is so complicated that more time is 
required; which, being given, the evils of protracting the 
decision come into play ; action then ensues on the side where 
strength of impulse prevails. 

Another source of evil is the undue impressiveness of the 
motive last suggested. Every consideration occurring to the 
mind is strongest at the moment of being first presented ; if 
we act at that moment, we are apt to give too much weight to 
the new and too little to the old. Aware, by experience, of this 
danger also, we hold back till every motive has cooled down, 
as it were, from the first heat, and until all are nearly on an 
equal footing. In proportion as we are impressed, by experi- 
ence, with this evil, does it abide with us, as a deterring 
motive, leading to voluntary suspense. A sudden thought, 
bursting on the view, has something of the dangerous pre- 
dominance of an actual pleasure or pain ; we are, however, 
taught the painful consequences thence arising; and if our 
memory for evil is adequate and just, we bridle in the mis- 
taken activity that we are impelled to. 

When opposing motives are numerous, it is a matter of 
real difiiculty for the coolest mind to estimate them correctly. 
As aii artificial help in such an emergency, Franklin, in a 
letter to Priestley, recommends the writing them down in two 
columns, so as to balance them piecemeal. When one, on one 
side, is felt to be about equal to one or two on the other, these 
are struck out, the complication being ta that extent lessened. 
ThB repetition of this neutralizing and deleting process leaves 
the opposing sides at last so much reduced, that the comparison 
is safe and easy. 

Another artificial precaution of some value in deliberating 
on a complicated matter, consists in keeping the deliberation 
open for a length of time, say a month, and recording the im- 



362 DELIBERATION. — KESOLUTION. — EFFOKT. 

pression of every day. At the end of the time, the decisions 
on each side being summed np, the majority would testify, in 
all probability, to the strongest on the whole. The lapse of 
time would allow all considerations within our reach to come 
forward and have their weight, while the matter would be 
viewed under a considerable variety of circumstances and of 
mental temper. 

A farther difficulty also suggested to the man of experi- 
ence and reflection, and influencing the deliberative process, 
is the inability to judge of untried situations. What one has 
gone through needs only to be fairly remembered ; but what 
is absolutely strange demands a careful constructive operation. 
Although the young cannot be made to see this, it comes home 
to advancing years. The sense of the resulting mistakes is a 
prompting of the nature of Ideal pain, to take the precau- 
tions of interrogating others, and referring to our own experi- 
ence in the situations most nearly analogous. Choosing a 
profession, entering into a partnership, emigrating to another 
country, contracting the matrimonial tie, are all more or less 
haphazard in their consequences ; they are less so, according 
as the individual has been taught by good and ill fortune how 
to deliberate. 

2. The Deliberative process is in conformity with the 
theory of the Will, contained in the previous chapters. 

In Deliberation, there is no suspension of the action of 
motives, but merely the addition of a new motive, the ideal 
evil of hasty action. Every pleasure or pain bearing on the 
occasion has its full weight, in accordance with the circum- 
stances already described ; and the action is always strictly 
the result of the total of motives. 

It is in the deliberative situation that we are supposed to 
exert that mysterious power called the * freedom' of the will, 
' free choice,' * moral liberty.' The only real fact undeijiying 
these expressions is the circumstance that we seldom act out 
a present motive. One may feel hunger, but may not follow 
out the prompting on the instant. Each human l3eing has a 
large reserve, a permanent stock of motive power, being the 
totalized ends of life ; a total that operates along with every 
actual stimulation, and quashes a great many passing motives. 
This reservoir of ideal ends is sometimes spoken of as the 
'self or 'ego' of the individual, the grand controlling prin- 
ciple ; when it has full course we are said to be ' free ; ' when 
it is baffled by some transitory impulse or passion, we are said 



DELIBERATION AND FREE WILL. 363 

to be * enslaved.' Now, Deliberation has the effect of bringing 
us ander the sway of our interests on the whole, but does not 
thereby make us act without a motive. There is no interven- 
ing entity to determine whether the motive shall bring forth 
the act; a motive may be arrested, but only through the 
might of a stronger. 

In metaphysical theory, it is often taken for granted that 
deliberation, or choice, is the type, representative, or essential 
feature of the Will. This is not the fact. The most general and 
essential attribute of the will, is to act at once on a motive, as 
when one seeks shelter from a shower ; it is an exception, 
although of frequent occurrence, to stop and deliberate, that 
is, to suspend action, until an intellectual process has time 
given to it, to bring forward ideal motives which may possibly 
conflict with the actual, and change the result. 

3. "When the action suggested by a motive, or a con- 
currence of motives, cannot immediately commence, the 
intervening attitude is called Eesolution. 

Besides the deliberate suspense, necessary for avoiding 
the known evils of precipitate volition, there may be a farther 
arrest of action. Many of our voluntary decisions are come 
to, before the time for acting commences. We deliberate 
to-day, what shall be done to-morrow, or next week, or next 
year. A name is required to indicate this situation of having 
ceased to deliberate without having begun to act. We call it 
Resolution. If action followed at once on motive, there 
would be neither Deliberation nor Resolution ; if it followed 
after such adequate comparison and balancing of motives, as 
experience testifies to be enough for precaution against haste, 
there would be no Resolution. 

The state thus denominated is not a state of absolute 
quiescence or indifference. There is an activity engendered at 
once, the preliminary to the proper action ; an attitude of 
waiting and watching the time and circumstances for com- 
mencing the course decreed. We are moved by health and 
pleasure to contrive a holiday ; we know that to rush off at 
once under these very strong motives would probably entail 
misery. ¥/'e suspend and deliberate ; after allowing sufficient 
space for all motives to assemble and be heard, the result is 
in favour of the first suggestion. The interval that still 
divides us from the actual movement, is the interval of 
resolution, or preliminary volition. 

In the state of resolution, we are liable to changes of 



364 DELIBERATION.— RESOLUTION. — EFFORT. 

motive, inducing us to abandon the course resolved on. We 
liave not, perhaps, at the time of ceasing to deliberate, had 
the motives fully before us ; we may not have counted 
suflB.ciently with the toil and opposition and inconveniences 
that we should encounter, all which may come to the view 
afterwards, and reverse our decision. Hence we often 
abandon our resolutions either before action commences, or 
after commencing and grappling with the real diflB.culties. 
All this ODly shows that the deliberative process had been 
too hurriedly concluded. Irresolution is a sign either of 
want of deliberation, or of undue susceptibility to a pre- 
sent and actual motive. The resolute man is he that, in 
the first place, allows an ample deliberative suspense, and, 
in the second place, is under the power of the permanent 
or ideal motives, which is what we mean by steadiness of 
purpose. 

We make resolutions for our whole lives, which neces- 
sarily run many risks of being broken. Ifc is not merely 
through insufiicient deliberation and infirmity of purpose, 
that we depart from such resolutions, but also from the 
occurrence of new motives, better insight, and altered 
circumstances. 

We exist from day to day under a host of resolutions. 
Few of our actions are either pro re nata, or the result of a 
deliberation at once executed. We go forth every morning 
to fulfil ' engagements,' that is, carry out resolutions. The 
creature of impulse is he that does not retain the permanent 
motives embodied in his engagements or resolutions, but 
gives way to the spur of the occasion, as when the boy sent 
on an errand, loiters to play marbles. 

For the same reason as above stated, with regard to 
deliberation, namely, familiarity of occurrence, we are apt to 
consider resolution as, not an incident, but an essential of 
the Will. In both cases, it is the faUacia accidentis, setting 
up an occasional property as the main property of a thing. 
The typical will neither deliberates nor resolves, but passes, 
without interval, from a motive state to an action. The 
superior intelligence of the higher beings mduces upon this 
primitive link a series of artificial suspenses, not exceptions 
to the general law of the will, but complications of it ; and 
the complicated modes are so common, and moreover so 
prominent and noticeable, that we fancy at last, that they are 
necessary to the very existence — a part, if not the whole 
essence, of will. 



EFFORT NOT ESSENTIAL TO THE WILL. 365 

4. If, with a strong motive, there is weakness or 
insufficiency of the active organs, we have the peculiar 
consciousness, named Effort. 

When we are moved to an exertion that we are fully equal 
to, we have a muscular feeling that is pleasurable or else in- 
different ; in either case, we say that the act costs no effort. 
As we approach the limits of our strength, the feeling 
gradually inclines to pain. The interval between easy per- 
formance and total inability, is marked by the presence of 
this familiar experience ; the greater the pain, the greater is 
said to be the effort. As all pain is a motive to desist from 
whatever exercise is causing it, we should not continue to 
act, but for the pressure of some still stronger raotive. In 
such cases, there is the necessity for an increasing stimulus, 
as the pain of the action increases. The state of effort, 
therefore, may be described as a muscular pain joined to the 
pain of a conflict of motives. On occasion of excessive 
exercise, and during spasm, we may have the organic pain of 
muscle besides. 

5. The consciousness of Effort, like Deliberation and 
Kesolution, is an accident, and not an essential, of the 
"Will. 

It is the, nature of a voluntary act to be accompanied with 
consciousness. The feeling that constitutes the motive is one 
form ; to which is added the consciousness of active exertion, 
which varies with the condition of the organs as compared 
with the demand made upon them. ; one of its phases being 
the state of effort. We are not entitled to include, in the 
essence of Will, the consciousness of Effort, any more than 
we can include the delight of exercise when the organs are 
fresh.* 

* It has been maintained (Herschell's Astronomy, chap, viii.), that 
the consciousness of effort accompanying voluntary action is the proof 
that mind is the real source of voluntary power, and, by analogy, the 
source of afl the powers of nature — as gravity and all other prime movers. 
This doctrine is liable to very strong objections. 

First, As now stated, the consciousness of effort does not accompany 
all volnntary actions, but only that class where the active power is not 
fully equal to the work. 

Secondly, Although some kind of consciousness accompanies volun- 
tary power, there are also present a series of ptiysical changes, and a 
physical expenditure, corresponding in amount to the work to be done. 
A certain amount of food, digested, assimilated, and consumed, is de- 
manded for every voluntary exertion, and in greater quantity as the 
exertion is greater. In a deficiency of food, or in an exhausted condition 



366 DESIRE. 

CHAPTEK VII. 
DESIEE. 

1. Desire is the state of mind where there is a motive 
to act — some pleasure or pain, actual or ideal — without 
the ability. It is thus another of the states of interval, or 
suspense, betv/een motive and execution. 

When a pleasure prompts us to work for its continuance 
or increase, and when we at once follow the prompting, there 
is no place for desh^e. So with pain. Going out into the 
open air, we encounter a painful chill ; we turn back and put 
on extra clothing; the pain has induced a remedy by the 
primordial stimulus of the will, guided by our acquired apti- 
tudes. Walking at a distance from home, the air suddenly 
cools to the chilling point. We have no remedy at hand. 
The condition thus arising, a motive without the power of 
acting, is Desire. 

2. In Desire, there is the presence of some motive, a 
pleasure or a pain, and a state of conflict, in itself painful. 

The motive may be some present pleasure, which urges to 
action for its continuance or increase. It may be some plea- 
sure conceived in idea, with a prompting to attain it in the 
reality, as the pleasure of a summer tour. It may be a pre- 
sent pain moving us to obtain mitigation or relief; or a 

of the active members, the most intense consciousness, whether of effort 
or any other mode, is unable to- bring forth voluntary or mechanical 
energy. With abundance of food, and good material conditions of the 
system, force will be exerted with or without the antecedent of con- 
sciousness. 

Thirdly, The animal frame is the constant theatre of mechanical 
movements that are entirely withdrawn from consciousness. Such are 
the movements of the lungs, the heart, and the intestines ; these the 
consciousness neither helps nor retards. 

Fourthly, When voluntary actions become habitual, they are less and 
less associated with consciousness : approaching to the condition of the 
reflex or automatic actions last noticed. 

Thus, whenever mind is a source of power, it is in conjunction with a 
material expenditure, such as would give rise to mechanical or other 
energy without the concurrence of mind ; while, of the animal forces 
themselves, a considerable portion is entirely dissociated from mind or 
consciousness. 



CONTENTMENT. 367 

pending but future pain, ideally conceived, with a spur to pre- 
vent its becoming actual. So far as the motive itself is con- 
cerned, we may be under either pleasure or pain. But in so far 
as there is inability to obey the dictates of the motive, there is 
a pain of the nature of conflict ; which must attach to every 
form of desire, although in certain cases neutralized by plea- 
surable accompaniments. 

3. There are various modes of escape from the con- 
flict, and unrest, of Desire. 

The first is forced quiescence ; to which are given the 
familiar names — endurance, resignation^ fortitude, patience, 
contentment. 

This is a voluntary exertion prompted by the pain of the 
conflict. It means the putting forth of a volition to restrain 
the motive force of desire, to deprive the state of its volitional 
urgency. If the motive is a present pleasure, the will can 
oppose the urgency to add to it, and so bring on the condition 
of serene and satisfying enjoyments ; if a present pain, the 
restraint of the motive urgency ends in the state called en- 
durance, patience, resignation; a remarkable form of con- 
sciousness, where pain, by a neutralizing volition, is reduced 
to the state of a feeling possessed of only emotional and in- 
tellectual characteristics. 

The self-restraint, implied under endurance, coerces all 
the movements and inward springs of movement, that, but 
for such coercion, would be gxerted with a view to relief, even 
although fruitless. The same volition may likewise suppress 
the diffusive manifestations and gesticulative outburst of strong 
feeling. Both are comprised in the renowned endurance of 
the old Spartan, or of the Indian under torture. As a remedial 
operation, such a vigorous suppressive effort, in the case of 
physical pain, can directly do little but save the muscular 
organs from exhaustion ; indirectly it will stamp the pain on 
the memory by leaving the present consciousness to taste its 
utmost bitterness ; so that the present endurance in that form 
may be favourable to future precaution. When the pain is 
ideal or imaginary, or the result of artificial stimulation, as 
when one frets at not having the good fortune of others 
around, the forced quiescence eventually works a cure. Also, 
in the case of pleasure craving for increase, the suppressive 
volition is of admirable efficacy ; it takes away the marring 
ingredient from a real delight, which is then enjoyed in purity. 
In these two last instances, we can understand the value of 



368 DESIKE. 

contentment, a forced state of mind prompted by the conflict 
of desire, and, by repetition, confirmed into a habitual frame 
of mind, favouralDle to happiness. 

Seeing that Desire may be viewed as so much pain, we may, 
as in the case of any other pain, assuage it by the application of 
pleasure. When children are seized with longings that cannot be 
gratified, they may be soothed by something agreeable. They 
may also be deterred from pursuing the vain illusion by the threat 
of pain. 

Another resource common to desire with other pains, is a 
diversion of the thoughts, by some new object ; a mode especially 
applicable to the ideal pains, and vain illusions of unbridled fancy. 
Change of scene, of circumstances, of companions, if not disagree- 
able, can effect a diversion of morbid intellectual trains, by intel- 
lectual forces. 

4. A Gecond outlet for Desire is ideal or imaginary 
action. 

If we are prevented from acting under the stimulus of our 
feelings, we may at least indulge in ideal acting. One con- 
fined to bed desires to be abroad with the crowd, and, unable 
to realize the fact, resorts, in imagination, to favourite haunts 
and pursuits. There is in such an exercise a certain amount 
of ideal gratification, which, in peculiar and assignable circum- 
stances, may partly atone for the want of the actual. 

With the bodily pains and pleasures, imagined activity 
entirely fails. The setting out in thought on the search of 
food is nothing to the hungry man ; the idea of breaking out 
of prison must often occur to l^he immured convict, but 
without alleviating the misery of confinement. 

It is difierent with the higher senses and emotions, whose 
ideal persistence is so great as to approximate to the grateful 
tone of the reality. We may have a desire to visit or re-visit 
Switzerland; being prohibited from the reality, we may 
indulge in an ideal tour, which is not altogether devoid of 
satisfaction. If we are helped, in the effort of conception, by 
some vivid describer of the scenes and the life of the country, 
the imagined journey will give us considerable pleasure. The 
gratification afforded by the literature of imagination testifies 
to the possibility of such a mode of delight. There would 
still survive a certain amount of desire, from the known 
inferiority of the imagined to the real ; but a discipline of 
suppression might overcome that remaining conflict, and 
leave us in the possession of whatever enjoyment could spring 
from ideal scenes and activity. 



DESIRE LEADS TO IDEAL ACTION. 369 

In this way, pleasing siglits and sounds, forbidden to the 
senses, may still have a charm in imagination; and the ideal 
pursuit of them would enhance the pleasure. Still more are 
the pleasures of affection, complacency, power, revenge, know- 
ledge, fit to be the subject of ideal longings and pursuit. 
These emotions can all be to some extent indulged in absence, 
so as to make us feel something of their warmth and elation. 
It is not in vain, therefore, that we sustain an ideal pursuit 
in favour of some object of love, some future of renown, some 
goal of accomplishment, some inaccessible height of moral 
excellence. The day-dreamer, whose ideal emotions are well 
supported, by the means formerly described, has moments of 
great enjoyment, although still liable to the pains of conflict, 
and to the equally painful exhaustion following on ideal 
excitement. 

If a pleasure in memory or in imagination were as good 
as the reality, there would be no pursuit either actual or 
ideal, and no desire. Or if the reality had some painful 
experiences enough to do away with the superiority of the 
actual, we should be free from the urgency of motives to the 
will. Many occasions of pleasure exemplify one or other of 
these two positions; evenings in society, public entertain- 
ments, dignified pursuits, and the like. We may have a 
pleasure in thinking of places where we have formerly been, 
with a total absence of desire to return. 

The spur of an ideal pleasure consists, partly in the 
perennial tendency of pleasure to seek for increase, and 
partly in the pain arising from a consciousness of the in- 
feriority of the ideal to the actual. This pain is at its 
maximum in regard to the pleasures of organic life and of 
the inferior senses ; and at its minimum in the pleasures 
termed elevating and refined. 

5. The Provocatives of Desire are, in the first place, 
the actual wants or deficiencies of the system^ and secondly, 
the experience of pleasure. 

The first class correspond with the Appetites, and with 
those artificial cravings of the system generated by physical 
habits. We pass through a round of natural wants, for food, 
exercise, &c., and when each finds its gratification at hand, 
there is no room for desire. An interval or delay brings on 
the state of craving or longing, with the alternative outlets 
now described. 

If we aet aside the Appetites, the main provocative of 



370 DESIRE. 

Desire is the experience of pleasure. When any pleasure has 
once been tasted, the recollection is afterwards a motive to 
regain it. The infant has no craving but for the breast; 
desire conies in with new pleasures. It is from enjoying 
the actual, that we come to desire the pleasures of sound, of 
spectacle, and of all the higher emotions. Sexuality is 
founded on an appetite, but the other pleasing emotions are 
brought, by a course of experience, to the longing pitch. In- 
tense as is the feeling of maternity, no animal or human being 
preconceives it. The emotions of wonder, of complacency, 
of ambition, of revenge, of curiosity, of fine art, must be 
gratified in order to be evoked as permanent longings. Ex- 
perience is necessary to temptation in this class of delights. 
A being solitary from birth would have no craving for society. 

Even as regards Appetite, experience gives a definite aim 
to the longings, directing them upon the objects known as the 
means of their gratification. We crave for certain things 
that have always satisfied hunger, and for a known place 
suited to repose. This easy transition, efiected by association, 
misled Butler into supposing that our appetites are not selfish ; 
they do not go direct to the removal of pain and the bestowal 
of pleasure, but centre in a number of special objects. 

A higher complication arises when we contemplate the 
appearances of enjoyment in others, and are led to crave for 
participation. We must still have a basis of personal know- 
ledge ; but when out of a very narrow experience of the good 
things of life, we venture to conceive the happiness of the 
children of fortune, our estimate is likely to be erroneous, and 
to be biassed by the feelings that control the imagination. 
How this bias works, is explained by the analysis of the ideal 
or imaginative faculty (Book II., chap, iv., § 15). 

6. As all our pleasures and pains have the volitional 
j)roperty, that is, incite to action, so they all give birth to 
desire ; from which circumstance, some feelings carry the 
fact of Desire in their names. Such are Avarice, Ambition, 
Curiosity. 

This has very generally led to the including of Desire, as 
a phenomenon, in the classification of the feelings. In every 
desire, there is a pleasure or pain, but the fact itself is pro- 
perly an aspect of volition or the Will. 

7. As in actual volition, so in Desire, we may have the 
disturbing effect of the Fixed Idea. 



DESIEE NOT MECESSAHY TO VOLITION. 371 

No thing is more common than a persistent idea giving 
origin to the conflicts, and the day dreams, and all the out- 
goings of Desire. The examples already given of the fixed 
idea in the motives of the will, have their prolongation and 
expansion in ideal longings, when pursuit is impossible. Such 
are the day-dreams of wealth, ambition, affection, future 
happiness. 

8. Desire is incorrectly represented as a constant and 
necessary prelude of volition. 

Like Deliberation and Resolution, the state of Desire has 
now been shown to be a transformation of the will proper, 
undergone in circumstances where the act does not imme- 
diately follow the motive. There remains a farther example 
of the same peculiarity, forming the subject of the next 
chapter. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

BELIEF. 

1. The mental state termed Belief, while involving 
the Intellect and the Feelings, is, in its essential import, 
related to Activity, or the Will. 

In believing that the sun will rise to-morrow, that next 
winter will be cold, that alcohol stimulates, that such a one is 
to be trusted, that Turkey is ill- governed, that free trade in- 
creases the wealth of nations, that human life is full, of 
vicissitudes, — in what state of mind are we ? a state purely 
intellectual, or intellectual and something besides ? In all 
these affirmations there is an intellectual conception, but so 
there is in many things that we do not believe. We may 
understand the meaning of a proposition, we may conceive it 
with the utmost vividness, and yet not believe it. We may 
have an exact intellectual comprehension of the statement that 
the moon is only one hundred miles distant from the earth ; 
but without any accompanying belief. 

It is next to be seen, if a feeling, or emotion, added to the 
intellectual conception, will amount to the believing state. 
Suppose us to conceive and contemplate the approaching sum- 



372 BELIEF. 

mer as beautiful and genial beyond all the summers of tlie 
century, we should have much pleasure in this contemplation, 
but the pleasure (although, as will be seen, a predisposing cause) 
does not constitute the belief. There is, thus, nothing either 
in Intellect or in Feeling, to impart the essence of Belief. 

In the practice of every day life, we are accustomed to test 
men's belief by action, ' faith by works.' If a politician 
declares free trade to be good, and yet will not allow it to be 
acted on (there being no extraneous barriers in the way), 
people say he does not believe his own assertion. A general 
affirming that he was stronger and better entrenched than the 
enemy, and yet acting as if he were weaker, would be held as 
believing not what he affirmed, but what he acted on. A. 
capitalist that withdraws his money from foreign governments, 
and invests it at a smaller interest in the English funds, is 
treated as having lost faith or confidence in the stability of the 
foreign powers. Any one pretending to believe in a future 
life of rewards and punishments, and acting precisely as if 
there were no such life, is justly set down as destitute of belief 
in the doctrine. 

2. The relation of Belief to Activity is expressed by 
saying, that what loe believe we act itjjon. 

The instances above given, point to this and to no other 
conclusion. The difference between mere conceiving or imagin- 
ing, with or without strong feeling, and belief, is acting, or 
being prepared to act, when the occasion arises. The belief 
that a sovereign is worth twenty shillings, is shown by the 
readiness to take the sovereign in exchange for the shillings ; 
the belief that a sovereign is light is shown by refusing to 
take it as the equivalent of twenty shillings. 

The definition will be best elucidated by the apparent ex- 
ceptions. 

(1) We often have a genuine belief, and yet do not act 
upon it. One may have the conviction strongly that absti- 
nence from stimulants would favour health and happiness, and 
yet go on taking stimulants. And there are many parallels 
in the conduct of human beings. The case, however, is no 
real exception. Belief is a motive, or an inducement to act, 
but it may be overpowered by a stronger motive — a present 
pleasure, or relief from a present pain. We are inclined to 
act where we believe, but not always with an omnipotent 
strength of impulse. Belief is an active state, with different 
degrees of force ; it is said to bo strong or to be weak. It is 



BELIEF GROUNDED IN ACTION. 373 

strong when it carries us against a powerful counter impulse, 
weak when overpowered by an impulse not strong. Yet if ib 
ever induces us to act at all, if it vanquishes the smallest re- 
sistance, it is belief. The believer in a future life may do very 
little in consequence of that belief; he may never act in the 
face of a strong opposition ; but if he does anything at all that 
he would not otherwise do, if he incurs the smallest present 
sacrifice, he is admitted to have a real, though feeble, belief. 

(2) The second apparent exception is furnished by the 
cases where we believe things that we never can have any 
occasion to act upon. Some philosophers of the present day 
believe that the sun is radiating away his heat, and will in 
.some inconceivably long period cool down far below zero of 
Fahrenheit. Any fact more completely out of the active 
sphere of those philosophers could not be suggested to the 
human mind. It is the same with the alleged past history of 
the universe, sidereal and geological. An astronomer has 
many decided convictions in connexion with the remote 
nebulae of the firmament. Even the long past events of 
human history, the exploits of Epaminondas, and the invasion 
of Britain by the Romans, are beyond our sphere of action, 
and are yet believed by us. And as regards the still existing 
arrangements of things, many men that will never cross the 
Sahara desert, believe what is told of its surface, of its burning 
days and chilling nights. 

Ifc is not hard to trace a reference to action in every one 
of these beliefs. Take the last-named first. When we believe 
the testimony of travellers as to the Sahara, we view that tes- 
timony as the same in kind with what we are accustomed to 
act upon. A traveller in Africa has also passed through 
France, and has perhaps told us many things respecting that 
country, and we have acted on his information. He has also 
told us of Sahara, and we have fallen into the same mental 
attitude in this case, although we may not have the same occa- 
sion to act it out. We express the attitude by saying, that if 
we went to Africa, we would do certain things in consequence 
of the information. 

As regards the past, we believe history in two ways. The 
first use is analogous to what has been stated, namely, when we 
put the testimony to historical events on the same footing as the 
testimony that we now act upon. Another way, is when we 
form theories or d.octrines of human affairs, reposing in part 
on those past events, and carry these doctrines into operation 
in our present pra^ice. 
18 



374 BELIEF. 

The belief in sidereal phenomena immeasurably remote in 
space and in time, is a recognition of the scientific method em- 
ployed upon these phenomena. The navigator sails the seas 
upon the faith of observations of the same nature as those 
applied to the distant stars and nebulee. If an astronomer 
propounded doctrines as to the nebulae, founded upon obser- 
vations of a kind that would not be trusted in navigation or 
in tbe prediction of eclipses, we should be in a perceptibly 
different state of mind respecting such doctrines, and that 
state of mind is not improperly styled disbelief. 

(3) In many notorious instances our belief is determined 
by the strength of our feelings, which may be alleged as a 
proof that it is grounded on the emotional part of our nature. 
The fact is admitted, but not the inference. It will be after- 
wards seen in what ways the feelings operate upon the belief, 
without themselves constituting the state of believing. 

(4) Yery frequently, belief is engendered by a purely in- 
tellectual process. Thus, when a proposition in geometry is 
first propounded to us, we may understand its purport with- 
out believing it ; but, by going through a chain of reasoning 
or demonstration, an operation wholly of the intellect, we pass 
into a state of entire conviction. So with the thousands of 
cases where we are led into belief by mere argument, proof, or 
intellectual enlightenment ; in all which, there is the appear- 
ance of an intellectual origin of belief. 

The same conclusion is suggested by another set of facts, 
namely, our believing from the testimony of our senses, or 
personal experience ; for perception by the senses is admitted 
to be a function of the intellect. It is by such an operation 
that we believe in gravity, in the connexion of sunrise with 
light and heat, and so on. 

So, when we receive and adjudicate on the testimony of 
others, we are performing a function strictly intellectual. 

Led seemingly by such facts as these, metaphysicians 
have been almost, if not altogether, unanimous in enrolling 
Belief among the intellectual powers. Nevertheless, it may 
be afi&rmed, that intellect alone will not constitute Belief, any 
more than it will constitute Yolition. The reasonings of the 
Geometer do not create the state of belief, they merely bring 
affirmations under an already-formed belief, the belief in the 
axioms of the science. Unless that belief can be shown to be 
an intellectual product, the faith in demonstrative truth is not 
based in intellect. The precise function of our intelligence in 
believing will be shown in what follows. ♦ 



BELIEF SUPPOSES INTERMEDIATE ACTIONS. 375 

3. Belief is a growth or development of the Will, "under 
the pursuit of intermediate ends. 

When a voluntary action at once brings a pleasure or dis- 
misses a pain, as in masticating food in the mouth, we expe- 
rience the primitive course of the will ; there is an absence 
ahke of deliberation, of resolution, of desire, and of beHef. 
By a fiction, one might maintain that we are believing that 
the mouthful of food is pleasant, just as one raight say that we 
choose, desire, and resolve to masticate and swallow the bolus ; 
but in point of fact, such designations would never have come 
into existence had all volition been of this primordial type. 
It is the occurrence of a middle or intermediate state between 
the motive and the felt gratification that makes these various 
phases to appear. 

Belief is shown when we are performing intermediate or 
associated actions. When we put forth the hand to seize an 
orange, peel it, andbring it to the mouth, we perform a num- 
ber of actions, in themselves barren and unprofitable, and 
stimulated by a pleasure to follow, which pleasure at present 
exists as the ideal motive. In this situation, there is a fact 
or phenomenon, not expressed by any of the other names for 
what fills the void of a suspended volition ; there may be pre- 
sent deliberation, resolution, and desire ; yet something still 
remains. For example, in taking these steps to enjoy the 
sweetness of the orange juices, we may have passed thrdligh 
the phase of Desire ; previous experience of the pleasure has 
given us an idea of it, accompanied by longing for perfect 
fruition. We may also have passed through a Deliberation 
and a Resolution. But what is not yet expressed, is our assum- 
ing that the actions now entered on will bring the state 
desired, and our maintaining a degree of voluntary exertion as 
energetic as if the pleasure were actually tasted. When we 
act for an intermediate end, as strongly as we should for the 
actual end, we are in a very peculiar situation, not implied in 
desire, however strong, nor in deliberation, nor in resolution, 
and deserving to be signalized by a name. The principal 
designation is Belief; the synonymes are faith, trust, credit, . 
credence, confidence, assurance, security, reliance, certainty, 
dependence, anticipation, expectaiaon. 

The state is known to vary in degree. Having formed a 
desire, and having, if need be, deliberated and resolved, we 
may pursue the intermediate ends, either with all the energy 
that the ultimate consciousness would prompt, or, what is very 



376 BELIEF. 

common, with less than that energy ; perhaps with three- 
fourths, with one-half, or with one-fourth the amount. This 
difference need have no connexion with the intensity of desire, 
or with the processes of deliberation or of resolution ; it re- 
lates to a fact that has a separate standing in the mind ; and 
the circumstances affecting it call for a special investigation. 

4. Belief ahvays contains an intellectual element ; 
there being, in its least developed form, an Association of 
Means and End. 

The very fact of working for an intermediate end, with the 
view to some remote or final end, implies an intellectual con- 
ception of both, and the association of the one with the other. 
The lamb running to its ewe mother for milk and warmth, 
has an intellectual train fixed in its mind — an idea of warmth 
and repletion associated with the idea or characteristic picture 
of its mother. All the actions of human beings for remote 
ends are based on the mental trains connecting the inter- 
mediate with the final. 

We may properly describe these trains as a knowledge of 
natural facts, or of the order of the world, which all creatures 
that can do one thing for the sake of another, must possess to 
some degree. Every animal with a home, and able to leave 
it and to return, knows a little geography. The more exten- 
sive this knowledge, the greater the jpower of gaining ends. 
Th^ stag knowing ten different pools to drink from, is so much 
better provided than when it knew but one. 

Experience of nature, therefore, laid up in the memory, 
must enter into every situation where we exert belief. Nay, 
more. Such experience is, properly speaking, the just ground 
of helieving, the condition in whose absence there ought to 
be no belief; and the greater the experience, the greater 
should be the believing energy. But if we find, in point of fact, 
that belief does not accord with experience, we must admit 
that there is some other spring of confidence than the natural 
conjunctions or successions, repeated before the view, and 
fixed in the mind by the force of contiguous association. 

5. The mental foundations of Belief are to be sought 
(1) in our Activity, (2) in the Intellectual Associations of 
our Experience, and (3) in the Feelings. 

It is here affirmed, not only that Belief in its essence is 
an active state, but that its foremost generating cause is the 
Activity of the system, to which are added influences Intel- 
lectual and Emotional. 



ACTION CAKEIES BELIEF TILL WE AEE CHECKED. 377 

(1) The Spontaneity of tlie moving organs is a source of 
action, the system being fresh, and there being no hindrance. 
Secondly, the additional Pleasure of Exercise is a farther 
prompting to activity. Thirdly, the Memory of this plea- 
sure is a motive to begin acting with a view to th^ 
fruition of it ; the operation of the will being enlarged by 
an intellectual bond. These three facts sum up the active 
tendency of volition; the two first are impulses of pure 
activity ; the third is supported by the retentive function of 
the intellect. 

Under these forces, one or more, we commence action, 
and, so long as there is no check, we continue till overtaken 
by exhaustion. We have no hesitation, doubt, or uncer- 
tainty; while yet ignorant of what belief means, we act 
precisely like a person in the highest state of confidence. 
Belief can do no more than produce unhesitating action, and 
we are already placed at this point. 

Suppose now that we experience a check, as when our 
activity brings us pain. This is an arrest upon our present 
movements ; and the memory of it has also a certain deterring 
efiect. We do not again proceed in that track with the full 
force of our spontaneous and volitional urgencies ; there is 
an element of repugnance that weakens, if it does not destroy, 
the active tendency. The young animal at first roams every- 
where ; in some one track it falls into a snare, and with 
difiiculty escapes ; it avoids that route in future ; but as 
regards all others, it goes on as before. The primitive ten- 
dency to move freely in every direction is here broken in 
upon by a hostile experience ; with respect to which there is 
in future an anticipation of danger, a state of belief in coming 
evil. Repeated experiences would confirm this deviation 
from the rule of immunity ; but before any experience, the 
rule was proceeded on. 

We can now understand what there is instinctive in the 
act of believing, and can account for the natural or primitive 
credulity of the mind. The mere disposition to act, growing 
out of our active endowments, carries belief with it; ex- 
perience enlightening the intellect, does not create this active 
disposition, but merely causes it to be increased by the 
memory of attained fruition. A stronger natural spontaneity 
would make a stronger belief, experience remaining the same. 
Whatever course is entered on is believed in, until a check 
arise ; a repeated check neutralizes the spontaneous and 
voluntary agency, destroying alike action and belief. 



^ 



378 BELIEF. 

The phenomena of credulity and mistaken beliefs are in 
accordance with the active origin of the state. We strongly 
believe that whatever has been in the past will always be in 
the future, exactly as we have found it in an unbroken 
experience, however small ; that is, we are disposed to act in 
any direction where we have never been checked. It does 
not need a long-continued iteration, amounting to indis- 
soluble association, to generate a belief: a single instance 
under a motive to act is enough. The infant soon shows a 
belief in the mother's breasts ; and if it could speculate on 
the future, it would believe in being fed in that manner to 
all eternity. The belief begins to be broken through when it 
gets spoon meat ; and the anticipation is now partitioned, 
but still energetic in holding that the future will resemble the 
past in the precise manner already experienced. 

There is thus generated, from the department of our 
Activity, a tendency, so wide as to be an important law of the 
mind, to proceed upon any unbroken experience with the 
whole energy of our active nature, and, accordingly, to believe, 
with a vigour corresponding to our natural activity, that 
what is uncontradicted is universal and eternal. Experience 
adds the force of habit to the inborn energy, and hence the 
tenacity of all early beliefs. Human nature everywhere 
believes that its own experience is the measure of all men's 
experience everywhere and in every time. Each one of us 
believes at first that every other person is made, and feels, 
like ourselves ; and it takes a long education to abate 
the sweeping generalization, which in no one is ever en- 
tirely overcome. If belief were generated by the growth of 
an intellectual bond of experienced conjunctions, we should 
not form any judgment as to other men's feelings, until old 
enough to perform a difficult scientific operation of analogical 
reasoning ; we should say absolutely nothing about the distant, 
the past, and the future, where our experience is null : we 
might believe that the water from a known well slakes our 
thirst, but we should not believe that the same water would 
slake the thirst of other persons who had not tried it, nor 
that any other water would slake our own thirst. It is the 
active energy of the mind that makes the 'anticipation of 
nature' so severely commented on by Bacon, as the parent 
of all error. This anticipation, corrected and reduced to the 
standard of experience, is the belief in the uniformity of 
nature. 

We labour under a natural inability or disqualification to 



BELIEF PASSES BEYOND EXPERIENCE. 379 

conceive anything different from our most limited experience ; 
but there is no necessity that we should still persist in 
assuming that what is absolutely unknown is exactly like what 
we know. Such intrinsic forwardness is not a quality of the 
intellect, it is the incontinence of our active nature. As we 
act first and feel afterwards ; so we believe first and prove 
afterwards ; not to be contradicted is to us suflB.cient proof. 
The impetus to generalize is born of our activity, and we are 
fortunate if we ever learn to apply to it the corrections of 
subsequent experience. An ordinary person, by no means 
unintelligent or uncultivated, happening to know one French- 
man, would unhesitatingly attribute to the whole French 
nation the mental peculiarities of that one individual. As 
regards many of our convictions, the strength is in the 
inverse ratio of the believer's experience. 

6. (2) The second source of Belief is Intellectual Asso- 
ciation. 

The frequent experience of a succession leaves a firm 
association of the several steps, and the one suggests readily 
all the rest. This enters into belief, and augments in some 
degree the active tendency to proceed in a certain course. 
The . successive acts of plucking an apple, putting it in the 
mouth, and chewing it, are followed by an agreeable sensa- 
tion : and the whole train is by repetition firmly fixed in the 
mind. The main source of the energy shown in these inter- 
mediate acts is still the activity — partly spontaneous, partly 
volitional under the ideal motive of the sweetness. . Yet the 
facility of passing intellectually from one step to another, 
through the strength of the association, counts as an addition 
to the strength of the impetus that carries us along through 
the series of acts. On a piinciple already expounded, the 
idea of an act has a certain efficacy in realizing it; and a 
secure association, bringing on the ideas, would help to bring 
on the actions. It may be safely maintained, however, that no 
mere association of ideas would set the activity in motion, or 
constitute the active disposition, called belief. A very strong 
association between * apple ' and ' sweetness,' generated by 
hearing the words often joined together (as from the ' dulce 
pomum ' of the Latin Grammar), would make the one word 
suggest the other, and the corresponding ideas likewise sug- 
gest each other; but the taking action upon them still 
requires an active bent of the organs, grovfing out of the 
causes of our activity — spontaneity and a motive ; and, until 



380 BELIEF. 

these are brought into play, there is no action and no active 
disposition, or belief. 

When we have been disciplined to consult observation and 
experience before making affirmations respecting things dis- 
tant in place or time, instead of generalizing haphazard, we 
import verj extensive intellectual operations into the settle- 
ment of our beliefs ; but these intellectual processes do not 
constitute the attitude of believing. They are set agoing by 
motives to the will — by the failures and checks encountered 
in proceeding on too narrow grounds ; and when we have 
attained the improved knowledge, we follow it out into prac- 
tice by virtue of voluntary determinations, whose course has 
been cleared by the higher flight of intelligence ; yet there is 
nothing in mere intellect that would make lis act, or contem- 
plate action, and therefore nothing that makes us believe. 

It is illustrative and interesting to note who are the 
decided characters in life — the men prompt and unhesitating 
in action on all occasions. They are men distinguished, not 
for intelligence, but for the active endowment ; a profuse spon- 
taneity lending itself to motives few and strong. Intelligence 
in excess paralyzes action, reducing it in quantity, although no 
doubt improving it in quality — in successful adaptation to ends, 

7. (3) The third source or foiindation of Belief is the 
Feelinos. 

o 

We have already taken account of the influence of the 
Feelings in generating belief, and we need only to re-state in 
summary the manner of the operation. 

We may first recall the two tests of belief — (1) the energy 
of pursuit of the intermediate ends, the final end not being in 
the grasp, and (2) the elation of mind through the mere pros- 
pect of the final end (when that is something agreeable). In 
both these aspects, belief is afiected by feeling. 

If the final end is a pleasure, and strongly realized in idea, 
the energy of pursuit is proportionably strong, and the con- 
viction is strong, as shown by the obstacles surmounted not 
merely in the shape of resistance, but in the shape of total 
want of evidence. An object intensely desired is followed out 
with excessive credulity as to the chances of attainment. 

There is another mode of strengthening the believing 
attitude by pleasure. Irrespective of the contemplation of 
the end, which is necessarily pleasure (whether direct, or indi- 
rect, as relief from pain), there may be other causes of plea- 
sure operating at the moment to impart elation or buoyancy 



INFLUENCE OF THE FEELINGS. 381 

of tone. Such, elation strengthens the believing temper, with 
respect to whatever is in hand. A traveller in quest of new 
regions is subject to alternations of confidence according to 
the states of mind that he passes through, from whatever 
cause. He is more sanguine when he is refreshed and vigorous, 
when the day is balmj, or the scenery cheerful, there being no 
real accession of evidence through any of these circumstances. 
That a higher mood of enjoyment should be a higher mood 
of belief is evident on both aspects of belief. In the first place, 
whatever action is present is more vigorously pursued, with 
which vigour of pursuit the state of confidence is implicated. 
And, in the second place, as regards the cheering ideal fore- 
taste of the final end, anything that improves the elation of 
tone has the very same efiect as the improved prospect of 
the end would have, such improved prospect meaning a stronger 
belief. What we want from a strong assurance is mental 
comfort, and if the comfort arises concurrently with the belief, 
we have the thing wished, and the belief is for the moment 
made up by an adventitious or accidental mixture. 

In some forms of Belief, as in Religion, the cheering cir- 
cumstance is the prominent fact. Such belief is valued as a 
tonic to the mind, like any form of pleasure ; the belief and 
the elation are convertible facts. Hence, when the belief is 
feeble, any accession of a joyful mood will be seen to 
strengthen the belief, while the opposite state will be supposed 
to weaken it ; the fact being that the two influences conspire 
together, and we may, if we please, put both to the account of 
one, especially if the source of the other is hidden or unseen. 

The cultivation of these last named beliefs is purely 
emotional, and consists in strengthening the associations of 
feeling in the mind ; the case is in all respects identical with 
the growth of an afiection. With any strong afiection, there 
is implicated a corresponding strength of belief. 

Mere strength of excitement, of the neutral kind, will con- 
trol belief as it controls the will, by the force of the persisting 
idea. Whatever end very much inflames the mind, will be 
impressed according to the strength of the excitement, and 
irrespective of the pleasure or the pain of it, and, in deter- 
mining to action, will constitu.te belief in whatever appears as 
the intermediate instrument. A very slight and casual asso- 
ciation will be taken up and assumed as a cause. The mother 
having lost a child will conceive a repugnance to a certain 
thing associated in her mind with the child's death ; she will 
keep aloof from that thing with the whole force of her will to 



382 BELIEF. 

save her other children ; which is tantamount to believing in 
a connexion of cause and effect between the two facts. The 
influence of the feelings thus serves to confirm an intellectual 
link, perhaps only once experienced, into a strong associa- 
tion, such as a great many counter experiences may not be 
able to dissolve. 

Lastly, the power of the feelings to command the presence 
of one class of thoughts, and banish all of a hostile kind from 
the view, necessarily operates in belief as in action. A fright 
fastens the thoughts upon the circumstances of alarm, and 
renders one unable to hold in the view such as could neutralize 
the terror. There are considerations within reach that would 
prevent us believing in the worst, but they cannot make their 
appearance ; the well-timed reminder of them by the agency 
of a friend, is then an invaluable substitute for the paralyzed 
operation of our own intelligence. 

8. The Belief in the order of the World, or the course 
of Nature, varies in character, in different persons, accord- 
ing to the relative predominance of the three causes 
enumerated. 

All belief implicates the order of the world ; or the con- 
nexion between one thing and another thing, such that the 
one can be employed as a means to secure the other as an end. 
We believe that a rushing stream is a prime mover; that 
vegetation needs rain and sunshine ; that animals are pro- 
duced from their own kind ; that the body is strengthened 
by exercise. 

The chief source of belief is unobstructed activity. A 
single experiment is enough to constitute belief; what we 
have done successfully once, we are ready to do again, with- 
out the smallest hesitation. Repetition may strengthen the 
tendency, but five repetitions do not give five times the con- 
viction of one ; it would be nearer the mark to say, that, apart 
from our educated tests of truth, fifty repetitions might per- 
haps double the strength of conviction of the first. We are 
all faith at the outset ; we become sceptics by experience, that 
is, by encountering checks and exceptions. We begin with 
unbounded credulity, and are gradually educated into a more 
limited reliance. 

Our belief in the physical laws is our primitive spontaneity 
contracted to the bounds of experience. Of this kind, is our 
faith in gravity, heat, light, and so on. Our trials are greatly 
simplified by the guidance of those that have gone before us. 



BELIEF IN THE OKDER OF NATURE. 383 

As regards tlie more ordinary phenomena, we soon fall into 
the right channels of acting ; an animal learns in a short time 
from what height it can jump with safety. ^ 

The long catalogue of perverted, extravagant, erratic \ 
beliefs, can in most instances be accounted for by some \ 
unusual degree of feeling, whether pleasure, pain, or mere \ 
excitement. We are hard to convince that anything we like 
can do us any mischief; this is strength of pleasurable feeling, 
operating through desire, and barring out from the thoughts 
the hostile experience. We believe in the wisdom and other 
merits of the persons that we love or admire ; another of the / 
many instances of the power of feeling. We have at first un- ( 
limited faith in testimony ; whatever is told us is presumed, J 
as a matter of course, to be true, just as what we find on a 
first trial, is expected to hold always. Experience has to limit ^ 
this sweeping confidence ; and if likings and dislikings are 
kept under, and remembered facts are alone trusted to, 
we acquire what is called a rational belief in testimony, 
namely, a belief proportioned to the absence of contradictory 
facts. 

Our belief is influenced by our fellow beings in obvious 
ways. Sympathy and Imitation make us adopt the actions 
and the feelings of those about us ; and the effect of society 
does not stop here, but goes the length of compulsion. By 
these combined influences, we are educated in all beliefs that ~^^ 
transcend our own experience, and swayed even in what falls 
under our observation. 

A mere intellectual statement, often repeated, disposes us 
to credence, but does not amount to the state of belief, till we 
have occasion to take some action upon it ; and the real force 
of the state arises when our action receives some confirmation. 
We are in a very loose state of mind as regards many floating 
doctrines, such as the recondite assertions of science, and the 
higher mysteries of the supernatural. Should we make a 
single experiment for ourselves, and find it accord with what 
has been affirmed, we are at once elevated into confidence, 
perhaps even beyond the actual truth ; the untutored mind 
knowing nothing of the repetitions and precautions necessary 
to establish a fact. 

The superstitious beliefs of unenlightened ages, — astrology, 
alchemy, witchcraft, — and the perversions of scientific truth 
in early philosophy from the various strong emotions, are all 
explicable upon the influence of feeling in the originators, with 
the subsequent addition of authority and imitation. 



384 BELIEF. 

9. Belief is opposed, not by Disbelief, but by JJoubt. 
As mental attitudes, Belief and Disbelief are the same. We 

cannot believe one thing without disbelieving some other 
thing; if we believe that the sun is risen, we must disbelieve 
that he is below the horizon. 

When we ar6 unable to obtain a conviction, one way or 
other, we are said to doubty to be in a state of uncertainty, or 
suspense. If the thing concerns us little, we are indifferent 
to this absence of the means of conviction. The condition of 
doubt is manifested in its true character, as a distressing ex- 
perience, when we are obliged to act and are yet uncertain as 
to the course. The connexion of means and end does not com- 
mand our belief or assurance ; tbere are opposing suggestions 
or appearances, more or less evenly balanced ; or there is no- 
thing to go upon in either way. Hence we are in danger of 
being baulked in our ends ; and, in addition, have all the 
vacillation of a conflict. In matters of great import, doubt is 
the name for unspeakable misery. 

Doubt and Fear, although distinguishable, run very closely 
together. Doubt, in its painful and distressing form, is pre- 
cisely the state of Fear. A cause of fear deepens the condi- 
tion of doubt ; circumstances of doubt will intensify fear. 
The same temperament is victorious alike over doubt and fear; 
the active disposition bas been seen to be a spring of courage. 

10. The opposing designations Hope and Despond- 
ency signify phases of Belief. 

Hope expresses belief in its cheering or elating aspect, 
being the confidence in future good, the belief that some 
agreeable end is more or less certain in its arrival. It farther 
denotes something less than total or complete assurance, or 
rather it is considered as ranging in compass from the smallest 
degree of confidence that can have any elating effect, up to 
the highest point w^hen prospect is on a level with possession. 
Hence, in expressing hope, Ave usually append an epithet of 
degree ; we have good hopes of a prosperous commercial 
year, we have faint hopes of the next harvest. 

The opposite of Hope is not Fear, but Despondency, the 
belief in coming evil, a condition of mind the more depressing 
as the beHef is stronger. An army over-matched is despon- 
dent : that is, believes in impending defeat. The state of 
Fear very readily supervenes ; but there may be despondency, 
with the absence of fear proper. The extreme of Despondency 
is Despair. 



CONDITIONS OF MOKAL ACQUIREMENTS. 385 

When the hope or the despondency can be based on cer- 
tain evidence, or on probable evidence as entertained by a 
highly disciplined judgment, they are comparatively little 
affected by extraneous agencies of elation or depression. But 
in matters of probable evidence, and in minds of little sta- 
bility, the state of hope or despondency fluctuates with the 
influences that raise or depress the general tone. Every thing 
already said, of Belief in general, is true of belief under the 
name of Hope. 



CHAPTER IX. 
THE MOEAL HABITS. 

1. The Moral Habits are the acquirements relating to 
Feelings and Volitions. 

Besides the intellectual acquirements properly so called, 
as Language, Science, &c., we have a series of growths con- 
sisting in the increase or diminution of the feelings, and in 
modifications of the strength of the will, whereby some 
motives gain and others lose in practical efficacy. We speak 
of habits of Courage, Fortitude, Command of Temper, mean- 
ing that those qualities have attained, through education, a 
degree not attaching to them naturally. 

2. The Moral Acquirements come under the general 
conditions of Eetentiveness. 

Iq heightening, or in detracting from, the natural strength 
of feelings and volitions, -we are aided by all the circumstances 
enumerated in regard to the attainments of the intellect. 

In the first place, a certain repetition is necessary, greater 
or less according to the change that has to be affected, and to 
the absence of other favouring circumstances. The moral 
education seldom reaches maturity till a late period of life. 

In the second place, the mind may be more or less cort" 
cenirated on the acquisition. Apart from the amount of repe- 
tition, moral progress depends greatly on the bent of the 
leainer towards the special acquisition. If we are striving 
con wmore to attain any important habitude, such as the Com- 
mand of the Attention, the currents of the brain are exclu- 



386 THE MORAL HABITS. 

sively set in this one direction, instead of being divided with 
otlier engrossments. A less efficient, although still a powerful, 
stimulus, is the application of pain. 

In the third place, individuals diflPer in the power of 
Retentiveness or Adhesiveness, as a whole ; rendering them 
apt as learners generally. 

There are also local endowments leading to a special 
retentiveness in matters of knowledge ; as when the good 
natural ear brings about rapid musical attainments. It might 
be over-refining to attempt to carry this supposition into the 
domain of the feelings. 

3. The conditions special to the Moral Acquirements 
are, first, an Initiative, and, secondly, a Gradual Exposure 
in cases of conflict. 

As a large and important branch of moral acquisition 
consists in strengthening one power to overcome another, it 
is of great advantage to have an uninterrupted series of suc- 
cesses : which can only be secured by strongly backing at 
first the motive to be strengthened, and by never giving it 
too much to do. Defeats should be avoided, especially in the 
early stages. 

4. We may begin the detail by adverting to the 
voluntary control of Sense and Appetite. 

"We have seen, in the conflict of Motives, the sensations 
and the appetites resisted by ideal cod si derations, that is, by 
good and evil in the distance. I^Tow, this control depends, at 
first, on the relative strength of Appetite and of the Memory 
of good and evil ; eventually, however, repeated action in one 
way, either in indulging or in thwarting the appetite, brings 
into play Retentiveness, or habit, as an additional force on 
the prevailing side. 

Take, as an example, the endurance of cold, for purposes 
of healthy stimulation, as in habitual cold bathing and ex- 
posure to weather. There is a conflict of volition between 
present sensation, and good and evil in the distance. The 
ideal motive may be at first too weak, and may need 
strengthening ; for which end, it is desired *to superadd the 
force, of habit. The commencement demands an Initiative. 
Some cause from without should induce the regular and 
systematic exposure of the body to cold water and cold air. 
At the early stages, there may be felt a revulsion at the 
process. Repetition, if steady, has a twofold effect ; it lowers 



CONTKOL OF SENSE AND APPETITE. 387 

the painful sensibility, and increases the tendency to perform 
the actions as the appointed time comes round. Now, with a 
view to the more speedy attainment of these two ends, there 
should never be any intermission, or giving way ; and the 
shock encountered should not be of such an extreme kind, as 
would make an insurmountable aversion. Hence, an ade- 
quate initiative should concur with a graduation of the 
exposure ; with these two conditions, the progress of the 
habit is steady and sure. The subject of the experiment can, 
after a time, be left to the ordinary motives ; the moral edu- 
cation being complete. 

A parallel illustration applies to the whole department of 
Temperance or control of Appetite. 

Under the present head, we may notice the Command of the 
Attention, as against the diversions and solicitations of out- 
ward things. The infant is at the mercy of every sight and 
every sound, and has no power of consecutive attention, unless 
under some one sensation stronger than any of the rest. 
Early education has to reclaim the wandering and volatile 
gaze. The child is set to a short lesson, in the first instance, 
under a sufficient pressure from without to maintain the atten- 
tion during that time, and in spite of casual diversions. The 
demand for concentration is increased slowly, never exceed- 
ing what the combined force of the initiative and the acquired 
bent can achieve. 

Belonging to various situations and occupations is the 
habit of becoming indifferent to noise and to the distraction of 
spectacle, as in the bustle of towns and places of business. 
The ability to seclude the attention in the midst of noise may 
be acquired, if the conditions can be complied with. There 
must be to commence with some power sufficient to divert the 
mind from the noise for certain periods of time ; during every 
such period a lesson is taken, and, by sufficient repetition, the 
power of indifference may become complete for all circum- 
stances. The inuring process, while succeeding in most in- 
stances, entirely fails in some; the reason being that the sensi- 
tiveness cannot by any influence be sufficiently overcome to 
make a beginning. If these susceptible minds, instead of 
being at once immersed in the uproar, could be subjected to a 
steadily increasing noise, they might be hardened at last. 

5. Culture applied to the Special Emotions may em- 
brace (1) the Emotional susceptibility on the whole, and 
(2) the Emotions singly. 



388 THE MOEAL HABITS. 

(1) There is in each person a certain Emotional constitu- 
tion, or natural proneness to Emotion generally ; shown in 
the amount of emotional fervour and display. This may be 
increased or diminished by cultivation, at the expense of the 
two other departments of the mind. By sympathy, stimula- 
tion, and encouragement, by occupying the mind with emo- 
tional exercises, the department acquires more than its natural 
dimensions, while Volition and Intellect are proportionably 
shrivelled. If, besides the positive encouragement of the emo- 
tional side, there are positive discouragements to exerting 
Will and Intelligence, the work of re- adjustment will go on 
still faster. 

There are nations whose character is highly emotional in 
comparison with others ; at the head of the scale in Europe, 
we may place the Italians, after which come the French, Ger- 
mans, English. An English child domesticated in Rome or 
Florence, would contract something of the Italian fervour ; an 
Italian child, reared in the north of Scotland, would be ren- 
dered more volitional or intellectual, and less emotional. 

The leading displays of Emotion generally are, the sus- 
ceptibility to Amusement, great Sociability, devotion to Fine 
Art, the warmer modes of Heligious sentiment, and an emo- 
tional colouring impressed on scientific doctrines. 

(2) Any single emotion may be made more or less 
copious. Much important discipline is involved in the en- 
couragement or repression of individual emotions. 

For example, the pleasure of Liberty, with the pain of Con- 
straint, needs to be surmounted in many ways, being opposed 
to Industry, to Obedience or submission, and to the checks 
and obstructions of one's lot. 'No better example can be given 
of the power of habituation ; while the manner of attaining it 
is in full accordance with the general rules. The dislike to 
restraints may be completely overcome, and with it the plea- 
surable rebound of liberty. When this is the case, we shall 
find that the initiative has been all-powerful to secure un- 
broken submission. In every well-ordered mind, there are 
numerous instances of restraints, at first painful, now utterly 
indifferent ; scarcely any pleasure would be felt in breaking 
out from them. The old soldier has contracted a punctuality 
and an obedience, so thorough as to be mechanical ; he 
neither feels the pang of constraint, nor would he rejoice in 
being set free from the obligation. 

We have, in the case of Terror, a valuable illustration of 
the imperative nature of a gradual habituation. With a view 



CULTUKE AND SUPPllESSION OF EMOTIOINS. 389 

to impart a certain degree of courage to a timid constitution, 
it is above all things necessary to avoid a severe fright. A 
gentle and graduated exposure to occasions of alarm might do 
much to establish courage by habit, all other circumstances 
being favourable ; a single giving way is a serious loss of 
ground. 

The developments of the Tender Feeling include an ex- 
tensive course of habituation. Irrespective of the associations 
that connect it with special objects, constituting the affections, 
the indulgence of tender feeling increases the power of the 
emotion as a whole. 

The Emotion of Self-tenderness, or Self-complacency, 
beiug a special direction of the general feeling, is amenable 
to culture or restraint. The initiative in the case must be 
the individual's own volition, it being impracticable for others 
to control, otherwise than by example or moral suasion, an 
emotion that works unseen. 

The Emotion of Approbation, Praise, Glory, may be 
repressed by control, and its repression rendered habitual. 
Tt is a part of every one's experience to share in unmerited 
reproaches : and public men more especially have to contract 
a settled indifference to abuse. This is one of the cases 
where the system adjusts itself by the operation of Relativity. 
As praise and censure are felt in their highest force only 
while fresh, they are dependent on the occurrence of new 
occasions. 

It is almost, if not altogether, a contradictory aim to 
become indifferent to blame, while fostering the pleasure of 
praise. We may acquire by habit a certain amount of in- 
difference to other men's opinions, favourable or unfavourable, 
surrendering the pleasure as well as surmounting the pain. 
There is another course somewhat less sweeping: namely, 
to acquire a settled disesteem, or contempt, of certain indi- 
viduals, whose censure thereby loses its force ; while we retain 
a susceptibility to the opinion of others disposed to praise 
more than to blame us. 

The Emotion of Power, being in its unbridled gratification 
so mischievous, is subjected to control on moral grounds. 
To attain habits of moderation in regard to this craving, a 
man must be himself impressed with the evils of it, so as to 
put forth a commanding volition, and thereby initiate a habitual 
coercion. 

The outbursts of Irascibility have to be checked by 
voluntary control confirmed into habit. Thp education of 



390 THE MOIUL HABITS. 

the young comprises this department. The value of the 
initiative is fully manifested in this case. External influence, 
according to an ideal mixture of firmness and conciliation, is 
most happily employed in restraining the childish ebullitions 
of temper, so as to mature an early habit of coolness and 
suppression. It is more difficult to reach the deep-seated plea- 
sure of malevolence than to check the incontinent paroxysms 
most usually identified with irascibility. A man may be 
exacting, jealous, revengeful, without showing fits of ill temper. 

The department of Plot-interest may be pandered to by 
incontinent amusement, or restrained by self-command and 
by early discipline. A great indulgence in the amusements 
described under this head is a test of the Emotional nature 
as a whole. 

The Emotions of Intellect are cherished or suppressed by 
the same causes as the intellect itself. 

On the cultivation of Taste there is nothing new to be 
said. The transformation of a human being, born with a defi- 
cient sensibihty, into an artistic nature, expresses perhaps the 
very utmost stretch that culture can efi'ect, every circumstance 
being supposed favourable. There must be a great starving 
down of the predominating elements of the character, to bring 
forward this single feature from its low, to a high, estate. 

The Moral Feelings exemplify in the most interesting 
case of all, the same general considerations. When the 
elements of the moral sentiment are known, the manner of its 
development and its confirmation into habit are sufficiently 
plain ; but the importance of the subject deserves a separate 
chapter. 

6. Certain Habits may be specified under the Activity 
or the WiU. 

(1) In connexion with the active organs, we contract 
habits of invigoration and endurance, as the result of prac- 
tice. Whatever organ is steadily employed — the arm, the 
hand, the voice — attains greater strengtii and persistence, 
provided the habituation is gradual, and the demands never 
too great. Still, we must not forget, that such a strengthen- 
ing process, if carried far, will usurp so much of the nutrition 
of the system, as seriously to impair other functions either 
bodily or mental. As regards physical expenditure, the 
intellect is our most costly function. 

To evolve a larger quantity of spontaneous action than 
belongs to the constitution by nature, is one of the possible 



CONTROL OF THE INTELLECTUAL TRAINS. 391 

ways of re- distributing tlie powers of the system. A languid, 
inactive temperament may be spurred up to greater energy, 
by surrendering some other point of superiority ; as when a man 
whose forte is intelligence enters the army, or other active 
profession. 

(2) The habit of Endurance, as connected with Desire, 
might be advantageously dwelt upon. There are instances, 
where endurance is made habitual, under an outward initia- 
tive, as in apprenticeship to work. In other cases, it is the 
will's own resolution, under motives of good and evil. If a 
certain degree of steadiness can be maintained in bearing up 
against any endurable pain, the reward will follow in abate- 
ment of the effort or struggle. 

7. The voluntary control of the Intellectual trains may 
pass into Habit. 

There are two special modes of voluntary control of the 
trains of thought, and, in both, practice leads to habit. 

(1) Mental concentration, as against digressions, wander- 
ings, reveries, may be commanded by motive ; and, if initiated 
adequately and maintained persistently, may acquire the ease 
that habituation gives. . 

(2) The power of dismissing a subject from the mind is 
an exercise of will in opposition to intellectual persistence, and 
is difficult according as that persistence is inflamed by feeling. 
At first a severe or impracticable effort, it is eventually com- 
manded by men trained to iDtellectual professions, and is 
essential to the despatch of multifarious business. 

It is important to repeat, that many of the acquisitions, 
detailed in this chapter, are vast changes, amounting almost 
to a reconstruction of the human character ; and that, to ren- 
der them possible, the conditions of plastic growth must be 
present in an unusually favourable degree. Bodily health and 
nourishment, exemption from fiatigues, worry and harass- 
ment, absence of heavy drafts upon the plastic power by other 
acquisitions, together with the special conditions more par- 
ticularly urged in this chapter, must conspire with a consti- 
tutional endowment of Ketentiveness, to operate these great 
moral revolutions. 



392 PRUDENCE. 



CHAPTEE X. 
PEUDENCE.— DUTY.— MOEAL USTABILITY. 

1. Human Pursuit, as a whole, is divided, for im- 
portant practical reasons, into two great departments. 

The first embraces the highest and most comprehensive 
regard to Self; and is designated Prudence, Self-Love, 
the search after Happiness. It is opposed or thwarted 
mainly by the urgency of present good or evil, and by 
fixed ideas. 

Happiness is made up of the total of our pleasures, 
diminished by the total of onr pains ; and the endeavour after 
it resolves itself into seeking the one and avoiding the other. 
There is a complicated mixture of good and evil always in the 
distance, and even in the absence of moral weakness, we 
should find the problem of our greatest happiness on the 
whole, one of considerable perplexity. 

The influences on the side of Prudence are these : — 

(1) The natural aptitude, so often alluded to, for remem- 
bering good and evil, by w^hich the future interests are 
powerfully represented in the conflict with present or actual 
pleasure and pain. 

(2) The influences brought to bear upon the mind, 
especially in early years, in the way of authority, example, 
warning, instruction; all which, if happily administered, may 
both supply motives and build up habits, such as to counteract 
the strong solicitations of present appetite or emotion. 

(3) The acquired knowledge, referring to the good and 
evil consequences of action. A full acquaintance with the 
laws of our own bodies and minds, with the ongoings of 
society, and with the order of nature generally, counts on the 
side of prudence by making us aware of the less obvious ten- 
dencies of conduct. 

(4) The floating opinion of those around us, the public 
inculcation of virtuous conduct, and the whole literature of 
moral suasion, backed by the display of approved examples, 
go a great way to form the prudential character of the mature 
individual. ^ 



INFLUENCES IN FAVOUR OF DUTY. 393 

Althougli the proper function of public opinion is to mould 
us to duhjy as contrasted with mere prudence, yet in no 
country, has society refrained from both teaching and even 
compelling prudential conduct, according to approved stand- 
ards. 

(5) The reflections of the individual mind, frequently and 
earnestly turned upon what is best in the long run, are a 
powerful adjunct to the building up of a prudential character. 
The more we allow ourselves to dwell upon past errors, the 
more we increase their deterring force in the future. More- 
over, a certain deliberative habit is necessary to carrying out 
wisely any end of pursuit, and most of all the pursuit of the 
end that includes and reconciles so many ends. 

2. The second department of pursuit comprises the 
regard to others, and is named Duty. It is warred against 
not only by the forces inimical to Prudence, but also occa- 
sionally by Prudence itself. 

That, in the pursuit of our happiness, we shall not in- 
fringe on the happiness of others, is Duty, in its most impera- 
tive form. How far we shall make positive contributions to 
the good of our fellows is less definitely settled. 

The following are the prominent influences in favour of 
Duty. 

I. — The Sympathetic part of our nature has already been 
pointed out as the chief fountain of disinterested action. By 
virtue of sympathy, we are restrained from hurting other sen- 
tient beings ; and the stronger the sympathy, the greater the 
restraint. In many instances, we abandon pleasures, and 
incur pains, rather than give pain to some one that has en- 
gaged our sympathy. 

Sympathy is, in its foundation, a natural endowment, very 
feebly manifested in the lower races. It diflers greatly among 
individuals of the same race ; and may be much improved by 
education. Its main condition is the giving heed or attention 
to the feelings of others, instead of being wholly and at all 
times absorbed with what concerns ourselves alone ; and this 
attention may be prompted by instructors and confirmed into 
habit. 

II. — ]N"o amount of sympathy ever yet manifested by human 
beings would be enough to protect one man from another. 
The largest part of the check consists in the application of 
Prudential or self-regarding motives. 

(1) Punishment, or the deliberate infliction of pain, in the 



394 DUTY. 

name of the collective mass of beings making a society, is the 
foremost incentive to Duty, considered as abstinence from in- 
juring others. Not only is this the chief deterring instru- 
ment, it is also the means of settling and defining what duty 
is. Society prescribes the acts that are held to be injurious, 
and does not leave the point to the option of the individual 
citizen. Our own sympathies might take a different direction, 
inducing us to abstain from what the society enjoins, and do 
what society forbids ; but we are not permitted to exercise 
our own discretion in the matter. Hence duty is the line 
chalked out by public authority, or law, and indicated by 
penalty or punishment. 

The penalties of law are thus of a two-fold importance in 
the matter of duty ; they both teach and enforce it. The fre- 
quent practice of abstaining from punishable acts generates 
the most important of all our active states, the aversion to 
whatever is forbidden in this form. Such aversion is Con- 
science in its most general type. 

(2) The sense of our personal interest in establishing a 
systematic abstinence from injury on the part of one man to 
another, is a strong motive of the prudential kind. A very 
little reflection teaches us that unless each person consents of 
his own accord to abstain from molesting his neighbour, he is not 
safe himself; and that the best thing for all is a mutual under- 
standing, or compact of non-interference, observed by each. 
No society can exist unless a considerable majority of its mem- 
bers are disposed to enter into, and to observe, such a com- 
pact. Punishment could not be applied to a whole com- 
munity; it is practicable only when the majority are volun- 
tary in their own obedience, and strong enough 'to coerce the 
breakers of the compact. 

It may be fairly doubted whether the most enlightened 
prudence would be enough of itself to maintain social obedi- 
ence. At all events, self-love will do little or nothing for 
improving the condition of society; to the pure- self-seeker, 
posterity weighs as nothing. Nor would self-love easily allow 
of that temporary expenditure that is repayed by the affection 
of others ; a certain amount of natural generosity is necessary 
to reap this kind of gratification. 

The average constitution of civilized man is a certain mix- 
ture of the prudential and the sympathetic ; both elements 
arc present, and neither is very powerful. Individuals are to 
be found prudential in the extreme, with little sympathy, and 
sympathetic in the extreme with little prudence ; but an or- 



MORAL INABILITY. 395 

dinary man has a moderate share of both. The performance 
of dnty is secured in part by the self-regarding motives, and 
in part by the sympathetic or generous impulses, which prompt 
a certain amount of abstinence from injury and of self- 
sacrifice. 

3. The supporting adjuncts of prudence are also 
applicable to strengthening the motives of Duty. 

The arts of moral discipline and moral suasion, in other 
words, the means of inculcating the conduct prescribed by 
society as binding on all citizens, are numerous and well 
known. Early inculcation, and example, together with the 
use of punishment ; the force of the public sentiment concur- 
ring with the power of the magistrate ; the systematic re- 
minders of the religious and moral teacher ; the insinuating 
lessons of polite literature ; and, not least, the mind's own 
habits of reflection upon duty ; — are efficacious in bring- 
ing forward both the sympathetic and the self-regarding 
motives to abstain from the conduct forbidden by the social 
authority. 

4. Moral Inability expresses the insufficiency of 
ordinary motives, but not of all motives. 

The child that cannot resist the temptation of sweets, the 
confirmed drunkard, the incorrigible thief, are spoken of as 
labouring under moral inability to comply with the behests of 
prudence and of duty. The meaning is, that the motives on 
one side are not adequately encountered by motives on the 
other side. It is not implied that motives might not be found 
strong enough to change the conduct in all cases. Still less 
is it implied that the link of uniform causation in the case of 
motive and action is irregular and uncertain. 

There are states of mind, wherein all motives lose their 
power. An inability to remember or realize the consequences 
of actions ; or a morbid delusion such as to pervert the trains 
of thought, will render a human being no longer amenable to 
the strongest motives ; the inability then ceases to be moral. 
This is the state of insanity, and irresponsibility. 

There is a middle condition between the sane and the pro- 
perly insane, where, motives have not lost their force, but 
where the severest sanctions of society, although present to the 
mind, are unequal to the passion of the moment. Such pas- 
sionate fits may occur, under extraordinary circumstances, to 
persons accounted sane and responsible for their actions ; if 



396 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

they occur to any one frequently, and under slight provocation, 
they constitute a degree of moral inability verging on the 
irresponsible. 

In criminal procedure, a man is accounted responsible, if 
motives still continue to have power over him. There is no 
other general rule. It is requisite, in order to sustain the 
plea of irresponsibility or insanity, that the accused should 
not only be, but appear to the world generally to be, beyond 
the influence of motives. 



CHAPTEE XI. 
LIBEETY AND NECESSITY. 

1. The exposition of the Will has proceeded on the 
Uniformity of Sequence between motive and action. 

Throughout the foregoing chapters, it is either openly 
affirmed or tacitly supposed, that the same motive, in the 
same circumstances, will be followed by the same action. 
The uniformity of sequence, admitted to prevail in the phy- 
sical world, is held to exist in the mental world, although the 
terms of the sequence are of a different character, as involving 
states of the subjective consciousness. Without this assump- 
tion, the whole superstructure of the theory of volition would 
be the baseless fabric of a vision. In so far as that theory 
has appeared to tally with the known facts and experience of 
human conduct, it vouches for the existence of law in the 
department of voluntary action. 

Apart from the speculations and inductions of mental 
science, the practice of mankind, in the fartherance of their 
interests, assumes the principle of uniformity. No one ever 
supposes, either that human actions arise without motive, or 
that the same motives operate differently in the same circum- 
stances. Hunger always impels to the search for food ; tender 



PREDICTION OF HUMAN CONDUCT. 397 

feeling seeks objects of affection; anger leads to acts of 
revenge. If there be any interruption to these sequences, it 
is not put down to failure of the motives, but to the co- 
existence of others more powerful. 

The operations of trade, of government, of human inter- 
course generally, would be impracticable without a reign of 
law in the actions of human beings. The master has to 
assume that wages will secure service ; the sovereign power 
would have no basis but for the deterring operation of 
punishment. Such a thing as character, or the prediction of 
a man's future conduct from the past, wonld be unknown. 
We could no more subsist upon uncertainty in the moral 
world, than we could live on a planet where gravitation was 
liable to fits of intermission. 

If it be true that by the side of all mental phenomena 
there runs a line of physical causation, the interruption of the 
mental sequences would imply irregularity in the physical. 
The two worlds must stand or fall together. 

The prediction of hnman conduct is not less sure than the 
prediction of physical phenomena. The training of the mind 
is subject to no more uncertainty than the training of the 
body. The difficulty in both cases is the same, the com- 
plication and obscurity of the agents at work ; and there are 
many instances where the mental is the more predicable of 
the two. 

The universality of the law of causation has been denied both 
in ancient and in modern times; but the denial has not been 
restricted to the domain of mind. Sokrates divided know- 
ledge into the divine and the human. Under the divine, he 
ranked Astronomy and Physical Philosophy generally, a depart- 
ment that was beyond the reach of human study, and reserved by 
the gods for their own special control, it being a profanity on the 
part of human beings to enquire by what laws, or on what prin- 
ciples, the department was regulated. The only course permitted 
was to a^Dproach the deities, and to ascertain their will and plea- 
sure, by oracles and sacrifices. The human department included 
the peculiarly Sokratic enquiries respecting just and nnjust, 
honourable and base, piety and impiety, sobriety, temperance, 
courage, the government of a state, and such like matters ; on all 
these things, it was proper and imperative to make observations 
and enquiries, and to be guided in our conduct by the conclusions 
of our own intelligence. 

A modern doctrine, qualifying the law of universal causation, 

is seen in the theory of a particular providence expounded by 

Thomas Chalmers and others. It is maintained that the Deity, 

while observing a strict regularity in all the phenomena that are 

19 



398 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

patent and understood, as the motions of the planets, the flow of 
the tides, the descent of rivers, may in the unexplained mysteries 
introduce deviations, as in the vicissitudes of the weather, the 
recovery of a sick man, or in turning the scale of a complicated 
deliberation of the mind. 

In such theories, it is to be observed, that the exception to 
law is not confined to the mental world, but embraces, to an 
equal, if not to a greater, extent, the physical world. 

2. The perplexity of the question of Free-will is 
mainly owing to the inaptness of the terms to express the 
facts. 

The idea of ' freedom' as attaching to the human will ap- 
pears as early as the writings of the Stoics. The virtuous man 
was said to be free^ and the vicious man a slave ; the intention 
of the metaphor being not to explain voluntary action, but to 
attach an elevating and ennobling attribute to virtue. So- 
krates had used the same figure to contrast the inquirers 
into what he considered the proper departments of human 
study (justice, piety, &c.), with those that knew nothing of 
such subjects. 

The epithets ' free' and * slave,' as applied the one to the 
virtuous, the other to the vicious man, occur largely in ihe 
writings of Philo Judseus, through whom they probably ex- 
tended to Christian Theology. As regards appropriateness in 
everything but the associations of dignity and indignity, no 
metaphors could have been more unhappy. So far as the idea 
of subjection is concerned, the virtuous man is the greater 
slave of the two ; the more virtuous he is, the more he sub- 
mits himself to authority and restraints of every description ; 
while the thoroughly vicious man emancipates himself from 
every obligation, and is only rendered a slave at last when his 
fellows will tolerate him no longer. The true type of free- 
dom is an unpunished villain, or a successful usurper. 

The modern doctrine of Free-will, as opposed to Neces- 
sity, first assumed prominence and importance in connexioQ 
with the theory of Original Sin, and the Predestinarian views 
of St. Augustin. In a later age, it was disputed between 
Arminians and Calvinists. 

The capital objection to Free-will, is the unsuitability, 
irrelevance, or impropriety of the metaphor ' freedom ' in the 
question of the sequence of motive and act in volition. The 
proper meaning of ' free ' is the absence of external compulsion ; 
every sentient being, under a motive to act, and not interfered 
with by any other being, is to all intents free ; the fox impelled 



INAPTNESS OF THE TERM FREE-WILL. 399 

by linnger, and proceeding nnmolested to a poultry yard, is a 
free agent. Free trade, free soil, free press, have all intel- 
ligible significations ; but the question whether, without any 
reference to outward compulsion, a man in following the bent 
of his own motives, is free, or is necessitated by his motives, 
has no relevance. If necessity means that every time a wish 
arises in the mind, it is gratified without fail ; that there is 
no bar whatever to the realizing of every conceived pleasure, 
and the extinction of every nascent pain ; such necessity is 
also the acme of freedom. The unfaltering sequence of 
motive and act, of desire and fulfilment, may be called 
necessity, but it is also perfect bliss ; what we term freedom 
is but a means to such a consummation. 

The speciality of voluntary action, as compared with the 
powers of the inanimate world, is that the antecedent and the 
consequent are conscious or mental states (coupled of course 
with bodily states). When a sentient creature is conscious 
of a pleasure or pain, real or ideal, and follows that up with 
a conscious exercise of its muscles, we have the fact of 
volition ; a fact very different from the motion of running 
water, or of a shooting star, and requiring to be described in 
phraseology embodying mental facts as well as physical. 
But neither ' freedom ' nor ' necessity ' is the word for ex- 
pressing what happens. There are always present two dis- 
tinct phenomena, which have to be represented for what they 
are, a phenomenon of mind conjoined with a fact of body. The 
two phenomena are successive in time ; the feeling first, the 
movement second. Our mental life contains a great many 
of these successions — pleasures followed by actions, and pains 
followed by actions. ISTot unfrequently two, three, or four 
feelings occur together, conspiring or conflicting with one 
another ; and then the action is not what was wont to follow 
one feeling by itself, but is a resultant of the several feelings. 
Practically, this is a puzzle to the spectator, who cannot 
miake due allowances for the plurality of impulses ; but it 
makes no more difierence to the phenomenon, than the difier- 
ence between a stone falling perpendicular under the one 
force of the earth's gravity, and the moon impelled by a con- 
currence of forces calculable only by high mathematics. 

We do not convert mental sequences into pure material 
laws, by calling them sequences, and maintaining them (on 
evidence of fact) to be uniform in their working. Even, if 
we did make this blundering conversion, the remedy would 
not lie in the use of the word ' free.' We might with equal 



400 LIBERTY A.ND NECESSITY. 

appropriateness describe the stone as free to fall, the moon 
as free to deviate under solar disturbance ; for the stone 
might be restrained, and the moon somehow compelled to 
keep to an ellipse. Such phraseology would be obviously un- 
meaning and absurd, but not a whit more so, than in the 
application to the mental sequence of voluntary action.* 

3. On the doctrine of the uniform sequence of motive 
and action, meanings can be assigned to the several terms 
— Choice, Deliberation, Self-Determination, Moral Agency, 
Eesponsibility. 

These terms are supposed to involve, more or less, the 
Liberty of the Will, and to be inexplicable on any other theory. 
They may all be explained, however, without the mysticism 
of Free-will. 

Choice. When a person chooses one thing out of several 
presented, the choice is said to involve liberty or freedom. 
The simple fact is that each one of the objects has a certain 
attraction ; while that fixed upon is presumed to have the 
greatest attraction of any. There are three dishes before one 

* As it may seem an unlikely and overstrained hypothesis to represent 
men of the highest enlightenment as entangled in a mere verbal inac- 
curacy, a few parallel cases may be presented to the student. 

The Eleatic Zeno endeavoured to demonstrate the impossibility of 
motion. He said that a body must move either in the place where it is, 
or in the place where it is not ; but in neither case is motion possible ; 
for on the first supposition the body leaves its place, and the second is 
absurd. Here is a plain fact contradicted by what has seemed to many 
an unanswerable demonstration. The real answer is that the language 
contradicts itself ; motion is incompatible with the phrase in a place ; the 
fact is properly expressed by change of place. Introduce this definition 
and the puzzle is at an end ; retain the incompatible expression in a place, 
and there is an insoluble mystery. By a similar ingenuity in quibbling 
upon the word Infinite, the same philosopher reasoned that if Achilles and 
a Tortoise were to begin a race, Achilles would never beat the tortoise. 

In the Philebus of Plato, there is a mystical theory wrought up 
through the application of the terms ' true' and * false' to pleasures and 
pains. Truth and falsehood are properties belonging only to affirmations 
or beliefs; their employment to qualify pleasure and pain can only pro- 
duce the nonsensical or absurd. As well might a pleasure be called round 
or square, wet or dry. 

Many absurd questions have arisen through misapplying the attri- 
butes of the Extended or Object World, to the Subject' Mind. If we 
were to ask how many pure spirits could stand on the point of a needle, 
or be contained in a cubical space, we should be guilty of the fallacy of 
irrelevant predication. The schoolmen debated whether the mirid was in 
every part of the body, or only in the whole ; the question is insoluble, 
because unreal. It is not an intelligible proposition, but a jargon. 



DELIBEKATIOK— SELF DETERMINATION. 401 

at table ; the one partaken of is what the individual likes best 
on the whole. This is the entire signification of choice. 
Liberty of choice has no meaning or application, unless with 
reference to some prohibition from without ; the child who 
is not allowed to eat but of one dish, has no liberty of 
choice. In the absence of prohibition, the decision follows the 
strongest motive ; being in fact the only test of strength of 
motive on the whole. One may choose the dish that gives 
least present gratification, but if so, there must be some other 
motive of good or evil in the distance. Any supposition of 
our acting without adequate motive leads at once to a self- 
contradiction ; for we always judge of strength of motive by 
the action that prevails. 

Deliheration, This word has already been explained at 
length, on the Motive theory of the Will. There is nothing 
implied under it that would countenance the employment of 
the unfortunate metaphor ' freedom.' When we are subjected 
to two opposing motives, several things may happen. We 
may decide at once, which shows that one is stronger than the 
other; we come upon three branching roads, and follow the 
one on the right, showing a decided preponderance of motive 
in that direction. This is simple choice without deliberative 
suspense. The second possibility is suspended action. This 
shows either that the motives are equally balanced, causing 
indecision, or that the deliberative veto is in exercise, whose 
motive is the experienced evils of hasty action in cases of dis- 
tracting motives. After a time, the veto is withdrawn, the 
judgment being satisfied that sufficient comparison of opposing 
solicitations has been allowed ; action ensues, and testifies 
which motive has in the end proved the strongest. 

There is no relevant application of the term 'freedom' in 
any part of this process, unless on the supposition of being 
driven into action, by a power from without. A traveller 
with a brigand's pistol at his ear has no liberty of deliberation, 
or of anything else. An assembly surrounded with an armed 
force has lost its freedom. A mind exempt from all such com- 
pulsion is under the play of various motives, and at last de- 
cides ; some one or more of the motives is thereby demon- 
strated superior to the others. 

Self-determination. There is supposed to be implied in 
this word some peculiarity not fully expressed by the 
sequence of motive and action. A certain entity called ' self,' 
irresolvable into motive, is believed to interfere in voluntary 
action. 



402 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

But, as with the other terms, self-determination has no in- 
telligible meaning, except as opposed to compulsion from 
without. If a man's conduct follows the motives of his own 
mind, instead of being dictated by another man, he possesses 
self-determination in the proper sense of the word. It is not 
requisite that he should act otherwise than from sufficient 
motives, in order to be self-determined. ' Self,' in the 
matter of action, is only the sum of the feelings, pleasurable 
and painful, actual and ideal, that impel the conduct, together 
with the various activities impelled. 

Self-determination may be used to indicate an important 
difference in our motives, the difference between the jperma- 
nent interests and the tenvporarij solicitations. He that submits 
to the first class is considered to be more particularly self-deter- 
mined, than he that gives way to the temporary and passing 
motives. The distinction is real and important, and has been 
fully accounted for in the exposition of the Will. To neutralize, 
by internal resources, the fleeting actualities of pleasure and 
pain, is a great display of moral power, but has no bearing 
upon the supposed 'freedom' of the will. It is a fact of 
character, exactly expressed by the acquired strength of the 
ideal motives, which strength is shown by the fact of superi- 
ority to the present and the actual. Higorous constancy is 
the glory of the character ; the higher the constancy, the pre- 
dictability, of the agent, the higher the excellence attained. 

The collective ' I ' or * self ' can be nothing different from 
the Feelings, Actions, and Intelligence of the individual; 
unless, indeed, the threefold classification of the mind be in- 
complete. But so long as human conduct can be accounted for 
by assigning certain Sensibilities to pleasure and pain, an Active 
machinery, and an Intelligence, we need not assume anything 
else to make up the 'I' or 'self.' When ' I' walk in the fields, 
there is nothing but a certain motive, founded in my feelings, 
operating upon my active organs ; the sequence of these two 
portions of self gives the whole fact. The mode of expression 
' I walk ' does not alter the nature of the phenomenon. 

Self-determination may put on an appearance of evading 
or contradicting the sequence of the will ; as when a man 
departs from his usual line of conduct in order to puzzle or 
mystify spectators. It is, however, very obvious that the 
suspension of the person's usual conduct is still not without 
motive ; there is a sufficiency of motive in the feelings of pride 
or satisfaction, in baulking the curiosity, or in overthrowing 
the calculations, of other persons. 



MOEAL AGENCY. — ^ACCOUNTABILITY. 403 

The word ' Spontaneity' is a synonym for self-determina- 
tion, but eomes no nearer to a justification of the absurd 
metaphor. We have seen one important meaning of the word, 
in the doctrine of the inherent activity of the animal system, 
as contrasted with the activity stimulated by sense. The more 
common meaning is the same as above described, and has a 
tacit reference to the absence of compulsion, or even of sug- 
gestion or prompting, from without. The witness of a crime, 
in giving information without being summoned, acts spon- 
taneously. 

Moral Agency, The word 'moral' is ambiguous. As 
opposed to physical or material, it means mental, belonging 
to mind ; in which signification, a moral agent is a voluntary 
agent, a being whose actions are impelled by its feelings. 

It is no part of moral agency, in this sense, that there 
should be any suspension of the usual course of motives ; it is 
necessary only that the individual being should feel pleasure 
and pain, and act with reference to those feelings. Every 
creature possessing mind is a moral agent. 

In the second meaning, moral is opposed to immoral, or 
wrong, and is the same as ' right.' This is a much narrower 
signification. When Moral Philosophy is restricted to mean 
Ethical philosophy, or Duty, 'Moral' means appertaining to 
right and wroug, to duty, morality. 

In this sense, a moral agent is one that acts according to 
right or duty, or else one whose actions are made amenable 
to a standard of right and wrong. The brutes are not moral 
agents in this signification, although they are in the preced- 
ing ; no more are children, or the insane. 

The circumstances that explain moral agency, in the 
narrower and more dignified application of the word, 
appear best in connexion with the word next to be com- 
mented on. 

Responsibility, Accountahility , A moral agent is usually 
said to be a responsible or accountable agent. The word re- 
sponsibility is, properly speaking, figurative ; by what is called 
* metonymy,' the fact intended to be expressed is denoted by 
one of the adjuncts. A whole train of circumstances is sup- 
posed, of which only one is named. There are assumed (1) 
Law, or Authority, (2) actual or possible Disobedience, (3) 
an Accusation brought against the person disobeying, (4) the 
Answer to this accusation, and (5) the infliction of Punish- 
ment, in case the answer is deemed insufficient to purge the 
accusation. 



404 LIBEKTY AND NEOKSSITY. 

It is hard at a first glance to see what connexion a sup- 
posed freedom of action has to do with any part of this pro- 
cess. According to the motive theory of the will, all is plain 
and straightforward. Assume the existence of Law, and 
everything follows by a natural course. To ensure obedience 
to law there must be some pain inflicted on the disobedient, 
sufficient, and no more than sufficient, to deter from dis- 
obedience. Whoever is placed under the law, is liable to the 
penalty of disobeying it ; but in all countries, ever so little 
civilized, certain forms are gone through to ensure the guilt 
of every one accused of disobedience, to which the words 
Responsibility, Accountability, are strictly applicable ; after 
these forms are satisfied, and the guilt established, the penalty 
is inflicted. 

Endless puzzles are foisted into a very simple process, the 
moment the word 'freedom' is mentioned. It is said, that it 
would not be right to punish a man unless he were a free 
agen t ; a truism, if by freedom, is meant only the absence of 
outward compulsion ; in any other sense, a piece of absurdity. 
If it is expedient to place restrictions upon the conduct of 
sentient beings, and if the threatening of pain operates to 
arrest such conduct, the case for punishment is made out. 
We must justify the institution of Law, to begin with, and the 
tendency of pain to prevent the actions that bring it on, in 
the next place. The first postulate is Human Society ; the 
second is the connexion (which must be uniform) between 
pain and action for avoiding it. Granting these tvvo postu- 
lates. Punishability (carrying with it, in a well constituted 
society, Responsibility), is amply vindicated. 

Whatever be the view taken of the ends of Punishment, 
it supposes the theory of the will as here contended for, 
namely, a uniform connexion between motive and act. Unless 
pain, present or prospective, impels human beings to avoid 
whatever brings it, and to perform whatever delivers from 
it, punishment has no relevance, whether the end be the 
benefit of the society, or the benefit of the ofiender, or both 
together.* 

* The question has been debated, * Is a man responsible for his 
Belief;' in other words, Is society justified in punishing men for their 
opinions ? The two criteria of punishability will indicate the solution. 
In the first place, ought there to be Laws declaring that all citizens shall 
believe certain things ? Secondly, Avill pains and penalties influence a 
man's belief, in the same way that they can influence actions ? The 
answer to the first question, is another question, ' Shall there be Tolera- 
tion of all opinions ?' The answer to the second is, that penalties aro 



IS A MAN THE AUTHOR OF HIS CHAKACTER ? 405 

Another factitious difficulty originated in relation to pun- 
ishment is the argument of the Owenites, ' that a man's 
actions are the result of his character, and he is not the author 
of his character : instead of punishing criminals, therefore, 
society should give them a better education.' The answer to 
which is, that society should do its best to educate all citizens 
to do right ; but what if this education consists mainly in 
Punishment ? Withdraw the power of punishing, and there 
is left no conceivable instrument of moral education. It is 
true that a good moral discipline is not wholly made up of 
punishment ; the wise and benevolent parent does something, 
by the methods of allurement and kindness, to form the vir- 
tuous dispositions of the child. Still, we may ask, w^as ever 
any human being educated to the sense of right and wrong 
without the dread of pain accompanying forbidden actions ? 
It may be affirmed, with safety, that punishment, or retribu- 
bution in some form, is one-half of the motive power to virtue 
in the very best of human beings, while it is more than three- 
fourths in the mass of mankind. 

Another awkward form of expression connected with, the 
subject is, that 'we can improve our character if we will.' 
This seems a contradiction to the motive theory of the Will, 
which makes man, as it were, the creature of circumstances. 
There is in the language, however, merely ah example of the 
snares that we may get ourselves into, through seizing a ques- 
tion by the wrong end. Our character is improvable, when 
there are present to our minds motives to improve it ; it is 
not improvable without such motives. No character is ever 
improved without an apposite train of motives — either the 
punishment renounced by the Owenite, or certain feelings of 
another kind, such as affections, sympathies, lofty ideals, and 
so on. To present these motives to the mind of any one is to 
employ the engines of improvement. To say to a man, you 
can improve if you will, is to employ a nonsensical formula ; 
under cover of which, however, may lie some genuine motive 
power. For the speaker is, at the same time, intimating his 
own strong wish that his hearer should improve ; he is pre- 
senting to the hearer's mind the idea of improvement : and 
probably, along with that, a number of fortifying considera- 
tions all of the nature of proper motives. 

able to control beliefs, with a slight qualification. They can put a stop 
to the profession of any opinion; and in matters of doubtful speculation, 
they can so dispose the course of education and enquiry, that the mass of 
mankind shall firmly believe whatever the State dictates. 



406 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

The word ' will,' in such, expressions as the above, is a fic- 
tion thrust into the phenomenon of volition, like the word 
'power' in cause and effect generally. To express causation 
we need only name one thing, the antecedent, or cause, and 
another thing, the effect ; a flying cannon shot is a cause, the 
tumbling down of a wall is the effect. But people sometimes 
allow themselves the use of the additional word ' power' to 
complete as they suppose the statement ; the cannon ball in 
motion has the ' power' to batter walls ; a pure expletive, or 
pleonasm, whose tendency is to create a mystical or fictitious 
agency, in addition to the real agent, the moving ball. 

To say we can be virtuous if we like, is about the worst 
way of expressing the simple fact, namely, that virtuous acts 
and a virtuous character are the consequence of certain appro- 
priate motives or antecedents. Whoever wishes to make an- 
other person virtuous can proQeed direct to the mark by sup- 
plying the known antecedents, not omitting penalties ; who- 
ever wishes to make himself virtuous, has, in the very act of 
wishing, a present motive, which will go a certain way to pro- 
duce the effect. 

The use of the phrase * you can if you will,' besides acting 
as a cover for real motives, is a sort of appeal to the pride or 
dignity of a human being, and in that circumstance, may not 
be without some Rhetorical efficiency ; insinuated praise is an 
oratorical weapon. As Rhetoric, the language may have some 
justification ; the disaster is that the Tlhetoric should be taken 
for good science and logic. The whole series of phrases con- 
nected with Will, Freedom, Choice, Deliberation, Self-Deter- 
mination, Power to act if we will, are contrived to foster in 
us a feeling of artificial importance and dignity, by assimilat- 
ing the too humble sequence of motive and act to the illus- 
trious functions of the Judge, the Sovereign, the Umpire. 

HISTORY OF THE FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY. 

Plato makes the distinction of voluntary and involuntary 
{iKovaioi; and ciKovcnoo) ; but he does not ask Avhether the will is 
self-determined or whether it is necessitated. 

Aristotle's doctrine of the Voluntary and Involuntary, as 
contained in the Mcomachean Ethics, Book III., is fully given in 
the abstT^act of that work (Ethical Systems, Aristotle). The 
misleading terms — Liberty and Necessity — had not in his time 
found their way into the subject; and he discusses the motives 
to the will from a practical and inductive point of view. 

The Stoics and EpicuREAisrs, like Aristotle, can hardly be 
regarded as contributing to the history of the proper Free-will 



FKEE-WILL CONTKOVERSY — THE FATHERS. 407 

controversy, and their views are best given in connexion with 
their ethical doctrines (Ethical Systems, The Stoics, and The 
Epicureans). 

From Plotin^tjs we learn how the problem of freedom was 
understood by the Neo-Platonists. Will (6aXri(nQ) is not a 
faculty of the soul, but its essential attribute. It is not the same 
thing as liberty. Voluntary action {to tKovawv) is power to act 
accompanied by a consciousness of what is done. Liberty is when 
the power to act is not impeded by any external restraint. Thus 
killing a man unconsciously is a free act, but not voluntary. 
Liberty in man consists in being able to live a pure and perfect 
life, conformably to the nature of the soul. The nature of every 
creature tends necessarily towards its good ; whatever diverts it 
from this end is involuntary ; whatever leads it thither is volun- 
tary. Freedom is thus made to consist in independence of ex- 
ternal causes. Plotinus does not therefore touch the peculiar 
problem of the will, whether the will is necessarily determined by 
motives ; but merely expands the popular notion that freedom is 
to follow persistently what is good,, and slavery to follow what is 
bad. We speak of slaves to sin, more rarely of slaves to holiness ; 
yet, from the point of view of necessity, both expressions are 
equally correct, or equally incorrect. 

The Christian Apologists of the second century insist strongly 
on what they call the freedom of the will. In opposition to the 
fatalism of the Stoics, and the apathy of the Epicureans, they laid 
great stress upon man's power to judge and act for himself. 
Justin Martyr (a.d. 150) attacks the Stoical doctrine of Fate. 
It is opposed to their own moral teaching, and overlooks the 
power of the demons. It is by free choice that men do right or 
wrong, and it is by the power of the demons that earnest men, 
like Sokrates, suffer, while Sardanapalus and Epicurus live in 
abundance and glory. The Stoics maintained that all things took 
place according to the necessity of Fate. Justin pointed out the 
dilemma in which this doctrine held them. If everything be 
derived from fate, wickedness is, and so God or fate is the cause 
of sin. The alternative is, that there is no real difference between 
virtue and vice, which is contrary to all sound sense and reason. 

Tertullian (160-220) in his paper against Marcion, vindi- 
cates the freedom of the will. Could not God have prevented the 
entrance of sin ? And if he could, why did he not ? Tertullian 
answers that evil arose, not from God, but from man. Man was 
left free to choose good or evil, life or death. But should not 
God have withheld this fatal gift ? Nay, in bestowing liberty, 
was he not responsible for the consequent fall ? Tertullian 
answers very rhetorically, what could be better than to make man 
in the image of God ? It would be strange if man, the lord of 
others, should himself be a slave. This argument illustrates the 
use that the theory of free-will has been put to by theologians. 
It has been regarded as a door of escape from the awful dilemma 
that, in all ages, staggers piety, and strikes reason dumb : If God 



408 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

was willing tliat evil should be, be is not good ; if be Avas mi^vill- 
ing, then he is not Almighty. This imports into the discussion 
an apparently insoluble contradiction, and necessarily leads to be- 
wilderment and mystery. Admitting that our voKtions are sub- 
ject to the law of causation, it is possible and easy to vindicate 
human justice ; it is possible even, to a certain extent, to vindicate 
divine justice. For since we are imperfect and in need of moral 
discipline, we must see that punishment is eminently calculated to 
effect our improvement. Why we were not made perfect at once, 
why the pursuit of happiness should be so arduous^it belongs not 
to any theory of the will to explain. 

St. Augustus^, Bishop of Hippo (353-429), is as warm as Ter- 
tullian on the other side. He is the author of a complete scheme 
of Predestination that continued with little variation to the close 
of the theological discussion of Free Will. His views underwent 
several changes in the course of his life, but the shape they finally 
took remains identified with the doctrine of Predestination. The 
foundation of his views was his theory of grace and faith. He 
affirmed the total inability of man to accomplish any good works. 
Good works, the smallest as well as the greatest, come wholly from 
God. Grace attracts the corrupt will of man, and with an irresistible 
necessity awakens him to the need of redemption and to faith. 
This grace is bestowed not for merit, but of God's free gift. The 
will is determined and controlled by the agency of God, in conse- 
quence of what he has foreordained. The Elect were chosen, not 
because it was foreseen that they would believe and become holy 
(as most of the earlier fathers held), but in order that they might 
be made holy. Augustin thus clearly distinguishes his doctrine 
from that of mere foreknowledge. He holds that some were 
chosen to eternal life, and others were predestined to everlasting 
punishment. ' Whom he teaches, he teaches of his mercy ; whom 
he does not teach, he does not teach because of judgment.' This 
doctrine seems to make God unjust. He foreordains that a 
man shall sin, and for this sin consigns him to eternal torments. 
Augustin 's solution of the difficulty turns upon the doctrine of 
original sin. In Adam all men sinned, and rendered themselves 
justly liable to endless punishment. Adam's sin was the sin of 
every one of us. But Adam had free-will ; it was in his own 
power to ^:k his destiny ; he chose evil and death, and by his 
choice we all are irrevocably committed. God is not therefore the 
cause of that sin and consequent ruin ; he cannot be accused of 
injustice in leaving us in the state to which Ave have constructively, 
as lawyers would say, brought ourselves. The origin of evil is 
thus placed in the free-Avill of Adam, not in the decree of God. 
As this reasoning, even if conclusive, seems more fitted to silence 
than to convince, Augustin feels the necessity of advancing a step 
farther. In his tract on Grace and Free-Avill, he observes, that 
God moves men's hearts towards good Avorks of his mercy ; to- 
wards bad, according to their deserts, by a judgment in part made 
known, in jjart mysterious, but always just. He does not elect 



FEEE-WILL CONTROVEllSY — AQUINAS. 409 

men according to any merit they possess, but according to a hid- 
den judgment. Let not injustice be attributed to God, who is the 
fountain of wisdom and justice. When he permits men to be 
seduced or hardened, believe that it is on account of their demerits ; 
in those whom he mercifully saves, behold the grace of God ren- 
derino^ good for evil. 

While Augustin's doctrine of Predestination seems to have 
left no place for free-will, we yet find warnings that in defend- 
ing grace, free-will must not be given up, nor in defending free- 
will must grace be given up. It seems difficult to attribute any 
meaning to free-will in such passages. How is the existence of 
irresistible grace compatible with free self-determination ! Again, 
he tells us that by the fall man lost both himself and his free 
will ; that the will is truly free, when it is not the slave of vice or 
sin. Also, free-will is given to man, so that punishment for sin, 
both by divine and human law, is just. Neander observes 
that Augustin has confounded the conception of freedom, as a 
certain stage of moral development, and freedom from the de- 
termination of motives — a faculty possessed by all rational minds. 
Mozley says, after carefully examining the language of Augustin, 
that free-will means, with him, mere voluntary action, such as 
is admitted by all necessitarians ; that the will (except perhaps 
Adam's) has no self-determining power, but is determined to evil 
and to good respectively, by original sin and by grace. 

Aquinas. Aquinas is a follower of Augustin in the doctrines 
of original sin, irresistible grace, and predestination. ' Prsescien- 
tia meritorum non est causa vel ratio prsedestinationis.' The doc- 
trines of the church were to the schoolmen, what the acts of the 
legislature are to lawyers. They were subjects of deduction and 
argument, but not themselves to be questioned. But there is 
endless opportunity for ingenious interpretation in reconciling the 
doctrines with truth, or the laws with justice. It is, therefore, in- 
teresting to observe how Aquinas endeavoured to evade the con- 
sequences of a doctrine that he was not permitted to deny. 

(1) In the first place, the number of the reprobate was made 
as small as possible, as though that would lighten the difficulty. 
Perhaps, he says, the angels that did not fall with Satan, were 
more numerous than all the damned — men and devils together. 

(2) The difference between eternal happiness and misery jper- 
haps amounts merely to degrees of good. According to Aquinas, 
there are two kinds of happiness ; one is natural, and attainable 
by mere human effort ; the other is spiritual. There is a corres- 
ponding distinction in virtue. There is a goodness in the world 
sufficient to attain natural happiness, as well as grace to attain 
spiritual happiness. Those kinds of goodness have their source re- 
spectively in Eeason, and in God. The difference between those 
conditions is not one of good and evil, but of higher and lower 
good. Aquinas does not venture, further than by hints, to apply 
this theory of happiness to predestination and reprobation, except 
in one case. In favour of infants dying in original sin, he endea- 



410 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

vours, by an ingenious feat of interpretation, to extract the sting 
from eternal punishment. 

(3) Infants d^dng in original sin, are under the divine wrath 
due to that sin. However hard this conclusion may seem, it is 
unavoidable ; infants are condemned not for actual, but for con- 
structive, sin. But Augustin had said that the punishment of 
infants in hell was the mildest possible — omnium esse mitissimam. 
Aquinas -then asks, if it was a sensible (or corporeal) punishment ? 
No, for then it would not be the mildest possible. Did it involve 
affliction of soul ? IN'o, for that could arise only either from culpa 
or from poena. If it arose from culpa, that implied the presence 
of an accusing conscience, and it would not be the mildest. Nor 
could it arise from poena, which implied actual sin, or a will in 
opposition to the will of God. What then was the punishment of 
infants ? It was the want of Divine Vision — the object that the 
supernatural faculties sought. * In the other goods to which 
nature tends upon her own principles, those condemned for ori- 
ginal sin will sustain no detriment.' The only difficulty now was 
a saying of St. Chrysostom's, that the loss of Divine Vision was 
the severest part of the punishment of the damned, Aquinas 
answers, that it is no pain to a well-ordered mind to want what 
its nature is not adapted to, provided the want does not arise 
from any fault of its own. The infants will rejoice in their 
lot, not repining because they are not angels. This reasoning, 
though confined by Aquinas to the case of infants, yet applies logi- 
cally to the good, moral man, whose fault is substantially (unless a 
very technical view of sin be adopted) the sin of our first parents.* 

Calyin popularized the predestinarian views of St. Augustin. 
He accepts them in all their rigour, excluding every softening 
modification. He rejects the subtlety of Thomas Aquinas, that 
God predestinates man to glory, according to his merit, inas- 
much as he decreed to bestow upon him the grace by which he 
merits glory. He held that God foreordained some to heaven, 
and others to hell, not for any merit or demerit, but simply 
because it was his will so to do. The fall of Adam was not to be 
attributed to free will, but to the divine decree. 

The opponent of Augustin was Pelagius, who claimed for man 
complete freedom of self-determination and ascribed to God only 

* Mozley's Augustinicm Doctrine of Fredestination, p. 302. We may 
subjoin some distinctions taken in regard to Freedom and Necessity. 
Peter Lombard says that three kinds of liberty must be discriminated : — 
(1) Freedom from necessity, which is i)ossessed by God, since he cannot 
be coerced, and which, in man, is not affected by the fall ; (2) freedom 
from sin, which was lost by the fall ; (3) freedom from misery. Thomas 
Aquinas marks the following kinds of necessity: — (1) Natural, Absolute, 
or Intrinsic Necessity — that which cannot but be — is either material [e.g. 
quod omne compositum ex contrariis necesse est corrumjn) or formal {e.g. that 
the angles in a triangle are equal to two right angles). (2) Extrinsic 
Necessity is either of means to ends (as that food is necessary to life), or of 
compulsion^ which last alone excludes will. Aquinas makes much of the 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — HOBBES. 411 

foreknowledge of what men, ^ per liber ae voluntatis arhitrium^^ 
would elect to do. After the time of Calvin, at the beginning of 
the 17th century, this view was again strongly advocated by 
Aeminius in Holland ; and thenceforth the opposed tenets, in the 
theological phase of the question, have passed under the names of 
Calvinism and Arminianism. 

The philosophical aspect begins to be more exclusively considered 
with the names that follow. 

HoBBES. Hobbes's opinion on the Free-will controversy is 
given very clearly and concisely in a short tract on * Liberty and 
Necessity,' written in answer to another by Bishop Bramhall. He 
gives first his opinion, under several heads, and afterwards assigns 
his reasons. 

(1) When it occurs to a man to do or not to do a certain 
action, and he has no time, or no occasion, to deliberate, * the doing 
it or abstaining necessarily follow the present thought he hath of 
the good or evil consequence thereof to himself.' In anger, the 
action follows the idea of revenge, in fear that of escape. Such 
actions are voluntary ; for a voluntary action is one that follows 
immediately the last appetite (Hobbes's phrase for volition). 
Bash actions are strictly voluntary, and therefore punishable, 
* For no action of a man can be said to be without deliberation, 
though never so sudden, because it is supposed he had time to 
deliberate all the precedent time of his life, whether he should do 
that kind of action or not.' 

(2) Deliberation means considering whether it would be better 
to do the action or abstain, by imagining the consequences of it, 
both good and evil. This alternate imagination of good and evil 
consequences is the same as alternate hope and fear^ or alternate 
appetite to do or quit the action. 

(3) In deliberation, that is, the succession of contrary appetites^ 
the last is the Will, and immediately precedes the doing of the 
action. All the appetites, prior to the last, are mere intentions 
or inclinations. 

(4) An action is voluntary, if done upon deliberation, that is, 
upon choice and election. The meaning of free, as applied to a 
voluntary agent, is that he has not made an end of deliberating. 

(5) ^Liberty is the absence of all the impediments to action that 
are not contained in the nature of the agent.' [This means free- 

difterence between judicium and ratio. Brutes have not freedom ; the 
sheep avoids a wolf, not ex coUatione quadam rationis, but by natural 
instinct. But man has ratio, and ratio in contingent matters is concerned 
with opposites, and is not bound to follow any one. Inasmuch as man 
has ratio, he is not tied to one course. Will is related to free-will as 
intellectus is to ratio. Intellectus involves a mere apprehension of any- 
thing, as where principles are known of themselves without any collatio ; 
but to reason is devenire ex uno in cognitionem alterius. In like manner, will 
{velle) is simply the desire of anything for its own sake ; free-will {eligere) 
is the desire of anything as a means to an end. The end is related to the 
means, as a principle is to the conclusion dependent upon it. 



412 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

dom from compulsion ; Hobbes does not allow necessity to be a 
true contrast to freedom.] 

(6) Nothing begins from itself. Hence, when an appetite or 
will arises, the cause is not the will itself, but something else, not 
in one's own disposing. The will is the necessary cause of volun- 
tary actions, other things (than the will itself) are the cause of the 
will, therefore all voluntary actions have necessary causes, in other 
words, are necessitated. 

(7) A sufficient or necessary cause is that which alone produces 
the effect. This is merely an identical proposition, to show that 
whatever is produced, is produced necessarily. The cause being 
given, the effect necessarily follows. 

(8) The ordinary definition of a free agent, as that which, 
* when all thmgs are present which are needful to produce the 
effect, can nevertheless not produce it,' is contradictory and non- 
sensical. 

For the truth of the ^yq first positions, Hobbes appeals to 
every one's reflection and experience. The sixth position is, that 
nothing can begin without a cause, Now, there must be some 
special reason why a thing begins, when it does begin, rather 
than sooner or later ; or else the thing must be eternal. The 
seventh point is, that events have necessary causes, if they have 
sufficient causes, that is, in fact, if they have causes at all. From 
these principles, it follows that there is no freedom from necessity. 
He adds, as an argumentum ad hominem to the bishop, that if 
necessity be denied, the decrees and prescience of God will be 
left without foundation. 

Descaetes, in his Fourth Meditation, gives a definition of 
"Will and Freedom. ' The power of will consists only in this, that 
we are able to do or not to do the same thing, or rather in this 
alone, that in pursuing or shunning what is proposed to us by the 
understanding, we so act that we are not conscious of being deter- 
mined to a particular action by any external force.' Freedom 
does not require indifference towards each of two courses, but is 
greater as we are more inclined towards truth or goodness. In- 
difference, not moving for want of a reason, is the lowest grade of 
liberty, and manifests a lack of knowledge rather than perfection 
of will. 

In itself. Freedom is the same in man as in God, but it is exer- 
cised under different conditions. The will of God must have been 
indifferent from all eternity, as there was no antecedent idea of 
truth or good to determine it. It was from his almighty power 
that truth and good first arose. But man is differently situated : 
goodness has been established by God, and towards it the will 
cannot but tend. We are most free when the perfect knowledge 
of an object drives us to pursue it. 

In answer to Hobbes, Descartes adduces the evidence of con- 
sciousness. However difficult it may be to reconcile foreordina- 
tion with liberty, we have an internal feeling that the voluntary 
and the free are the same. This seems to indicate an anxiety to 



FEEE-WILL CONTROVEKSY — LOCKE — SPINOZA. 413 

establisli tlie internal fact, while otherwise willing to give up a 
liberty of indifference. 

Theologically, he maintains a stringent theory of Providence. 
The perfection of God required that the least thought in us should 
have been pre-determined from all eternity. The decrees of God 
are unchangeable, and prayer has an efficacy only because the 
prayer is decreed together with the answer. 

Locke was led in his chapter on Power (although it formed no 
part of his original plan), to investigate the nature of the will. 
He purposely avoided the metaphysical controversies regarding 
predestination and providence, refusing to deal with any supposed 
' consequences,' and rigorously confining himself to the question — 
What is the nature of the liberty possessed by men? The 
opinion of so acute and impartial a mind upon the bare facts of 
the case, must be taken as a near approach to the testimony of 
consciousness. Like Aristotle, he draws the distinction between 
voluntary and involuntary, but does not separate the voluntary 
from the freely voluntary.* He recognizes a meaning in liberty 
as opposed to coercion, but not as opposed to necessity. He 
defines freedom as ' our being able to act or not to act, according 
as we shall choose or will.' This is the very definition contended 
for by Hobbes, and afterwards expressly adopted by the neces- 
sitarian Collins. 

In Book II., Chap. XXL, he discusses the idea of Power. He 
enters at length into the nature of Will, and handles first the 
doctrine of Free-will, and next the motives to the will. As 
regards Freedom, he endeavours to extricate the question from the 
confused modes of expressing it. The true question is not whether 
the will is free, but whether the man is free. Liberty is the power 
to do or to forbear doing' any particular action, according to the 
preference or direction of one's own mind.t A man is free, if his 
actions follow his mental motives — pleasures and pains ; he is not 
free, when anything external to him forbids the actions so moved. 
Volition is an act of the mind exerting the dominion it takes itself 
to have over any part of the man, but is an operation better 
understood by any one's self-reflection, than by all the words 
employed to describe it. It is not to be confounded with desire; 
we may will to produce an effect that we do not desire. 

With reference to the motive power, Locke resolves it into the 
uneasiness of the state of Desire. Hunger, thirst, and sex, are 
modes of uneasiness. When good determines the will, it operates 
first by creating a sense of uneasiness from the want of it. We 
find that the greatest prospects of good, as the joys of heaven, 

*B. II. Chap. XXL, §11. 

^ Locke asks the further question— whether a man is as free to will, as 
he is free to do what he wills. Of two courses, is he free to will which- 
ever he pleases ? This question involves an absurdity. They that make 
a question of it must suppose one will to determine the acts of another, 
and another to determine that ; and so on in infinitum. 



414 LIBEKTY AND NECESSITY. 

have a comparatively feeble motive power ; while a bodily pain, 
violent love, passion, or revenge, can keep the will steady and 
intent. In a conflict, the will is urged by the greatest present 
uneasiness. 

Looking at the innumerable solicitations to the will, and the 
way that our desires rise and fall by the working of our thoughts, 
Locke adds another condition of our Liberty of willing — namely, 
the power of suspending the prosecution of a desire, to give 
opportunity to examine all the consequences of the act : it is not 
a fault, but a perfection in our nature, to act on the final result 
of a fair examination. The constant determination towards our 
own happiness is no abridgment of liberty. A man could not be 
free, if his will were determined by anything but his own desire, 
guided by his own judgment. 

Spinoza denied free-will, because it was inconsistent with the 
nature of God, and with the laws to which human actions are sub- 
ject. In a certain sense, God has freedom, as acting from a neces- 
sity inherent in his nature. But man has not even this freedom ; 
his actions are determined by God. There is nothing really con- 
tingent. Contingency, free determination, disorder, chance, lie 
only in our ignorance. 

The supposed consciousness of freedom arises from a forgetfulness 
of the causes that dispose us to will and desire. Volitions are the 
varying appetites of the soul. When there is a conflict of passions, 
men hardly know what they wish ; but, in the absence of passion, 
the least impulse one way or another determines them. A volition 
implies memory, but memory is not in our power, so then volition 
cannot be. In dreams we make decisions as if awake, with the 
same consciousness of freedom ; are those fantastic decisions to be 
considered free ? Those who fancy that their soul decides freely, 
dream with their eyes open. Another explanation is that the 
undetermined will is the universal will abstracted from particular 
volitions. Although every actual volition has a cause, yet this 
abstract will is thought of as undetermined, for determinism is 
no part of the conception of volition. 

God is not the author of evil, because evil is nothing positive. 
Everything that is, is perfect. Any imperfection arises from our 
habit of forming absti*act ideas, and judging of things thereby as 
if they were all susceptible of the perfection that belongs to the 
definition, and were imperfect in so far as they fell short of it. 
But the good and the bad are not on an equality, although they 
both express in their way the will of God. The good have more 
perfection in being more closely allied to God. 

The necessity of evil does not render punishment unjust. The 
wicked, although necessarily wicked, are none the less on that 
account to be feared and destroyed. A wicked man may be excus- 
able, but this does not aft'ect the treatment he must receive ; a man 
bitten by a mad dog is not blameworthy, but people have a right 
to put him to death. 

Collins has explained and defended the necessitarian doctrine 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — LEIBNITZ. 415 

in * A Philosophical Enquiry concerning Human Liberty.' He 
accepts Locke's definition of liberty as ' a power in man to do as 
he wills or pleases.' His thesis is that every action is determined 
by the preceding causes. (1) Experience is not in favour of liberty. 
Many patrons of liberty have defined it in such a way as not to con- 
tradict necessity, or have conceded so much as to leave themselves 
no ground to stand upon. On the other hand, experience testifies 
that we are necessary agents, that our volitions are determined by 
causes ; and even the supporters of free-will acknowledge that we 
do not prefer the worse, in other words, do not follow the weaker 
motive. (2) Whatever has a beginning has a cause, and every 
cause is a necessary cause. The doctrine of free-will is, therefore, 
a contradiction of the law of causality. (3) Liberty is an imper- 
fection, and necessity an advantage and perfection. It is no per- 
fection to be able to choose one out of two or more indiiferent 
things. Angels are more perfect than men, because they ai'e 
necessarily determined to prefer good to evil. (4) The decrees of 
God are necessary causes of events. Foreordination and liberty 
are mutually subversive. (5) If man were not a necessary agent, 
determined by pleasure and pain, there would be no foundation 
for rewards and punishment. 

Leibnitz. 1. The Nature of Lilerty and Necessity, Necessity 
is of two kinds — hypothetical and absolute. Hypothetical necessity 
is that laid upon future contingents by God's foreknowledge. 
This does not derogate from liberty. God's choice of the present 
from among possible worlds did not change, but only actualizedy 
the free natures of his creatures. There is another distinction. 
Logical, Metaphysical, or Mathematical necessity depends upon 
the law of Identity or Contradiction ; while moral necessity 
depends on the law of Sufficient Heason, and is simply the mind 
choosing the best, or following the strongest inclination. The 
principle of sufficient Eeason afhrms that every event has certain 
conditions, constituting the reason why it exists. God's per- 
fect nature requires that he should not act without reason, nor 
prefer a weaker reason to a stronger. This necessity is compatible 
with freedom in God ; so also in us. Motives do not impose upon 
us any absolute necessity, more than upon him. Without an in- 
clination to good, choice would be mere blind chance. In things 
absolutely indifferent, there can be no choice, election, or will ; 
since choice must be founded on some reason or principle. A will, 
acting without any motive, is a fiction, chimerical and self-contra- 
dictory. 

2. Necessity and Fatalism, To the objection that necessity is 
identical w4th Fatalism, Leibnitz answers by distinguishing three 
kinds of fatalism. There is a Mahommedan fatalism, which sup- 
poses that if the effect is pre -determined, it happens without the 
cause. The fatalism of the Stoics taught men to be quiescent, 
for they were powerless to resist the course of things. There 
is a third kind of fatalism accepted by all Christians, admitting 
a certain destiny of things regulated by the providence of God. 



416 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

3. The influence of motives, Leibnitz compared the will to a 
balance, and motives to the weights in the scales. This simile 
was taken from Bayle to illustrate the inactivity of the will, when 
under the pressure of equal motives, and of its action when one pre- 
ponderated. Clarke objected to it on the ground that a balance 
is passive, while men are active beings. Leibnitz answered that 
the principle of sufficient reason was common to both agents and 
patients. He admits, however, that, strictly speaking, motives 
do not act on the mind as weights in a balance ; they are rather 
dispositions in virtue of which the mind acts. To say that the 
mind can prefer a weak motive to a strong one, implies that it 
has other dispositions than motives, by virtue of which it can 
accept or reject the motives ; whereas motives include all disposi- 
tions to act. The fear of a great pain weighs down the expecta- 
tion of a pleasure. In the conflict of two passions, the stronger 
is victorious, unless the other is aided by reason or by some con- 
curring passion. But generally a conflict of motives involves more 
than two ; so that a better comparison than the balance would be, 
a force tending in many directions, and acting in the line of least 
resistance. Air compressed in a glass receiver, finds its way out 
where the glass is weakest. 

Samuel Clarke affirmed the existence of a power of self- 
motion or self-determination, which, in all animate agents, is 
spontaneity, in moral agents, is liberty. It is a great error to 
regard the mind as passive, like a balance. ' A free agent, when 
there is more than one perfectly reasonable way of acting, has 
still within itself, by virtue of its self -motive principle, a power 
of acting ; and it may have strong reasons not to forbear acting, 
when yet there may be no possible reason for preferring one way 
to another.' Leibnitz pointed out the contradiction here, for if 
the mind has good reasons, there is no indifference. A man never 
has a sufficient reason for acting, when he has not a sufficient 
reason to act in a definite manner. No action can be general or 
abstracted from its circumstances, but must always be executed in 
some particular manner. 

Clarke stakes the whole controversy upon the existence of this 
self-moving faculty. If man has not this power, then every human 
action is produced by some extrinsic cause ; either the motive, or 
some subtle matter, or some other being. If it be a motive, then 
either abstract notions {i.e. motives) have a real subsistence {i.e. 
are substances), or else what is not a substance can put a body in 
motion. It is unnecessary to follow him in the other alternatives. 

With reference to the action of motives, Clarke says the ques- 
tion is not whether a good or wise being cannot do evil or act 
unwisely, but whether the immediate physical cause of action be 
some sufficient reason acting on the agent, or the agent himself. 
This theory of self-motion has been severely criticized by Sir W. 
Hamilton. Clarke's definition, he observes, amounts only to the 
liberty of spontaneity, and not to liberty from necessity. Now, 
' the greatest sjpontaneity is the greatest necessity,^ 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — EDWARDS. 417 

JoN'ATHAi^ Edwards vindicates the doctrine of philosophical 
necessity in his work on the * Freedom of the Will ' (1754) in the 
interest of Calvinistic theology. His treatise, however, consists 
almost exclusively of philosophical arguments. 

1. Edwards's own view. The will is that by which the mind 
chooses anything ; and we are so constituted that on the mind 
choosing or wishing a movement of the body, the movement fol- 
lows. The Will is determined by the strongest motive, and the 
strongest motive is the greatest apparent good. [By motive, he 
means the whole of what acts on the will.] Necessity is only a 
full and fixed connection between things ; moral necessity is 
simply the fixed connexion between motives and volitions. 
Liberty is a power to do as one pleases ; it is opposed to constraint 
and restraint. The other meanings ascribed to liberty are : (1) a 
Self- determining power, whereby the will causes its own volitions; 
(2) Indifference, or that, previous to volition, the mind is in equi- 
librium ; (3) Contingence, the denial of any fixed connection be- 
tween motives and volitions. These conceptions of liberty he 
proceeds to refute. 

2. Self- determination is inconsistent and inconceivable. If the 
will determines its own acts, it doubtless does so in the same way 
in which it produces bodily movements — by acts of volition. 
Hence every free volition is preceded by a prior volition ; and if 
this prior volition be free, it must be preceded by a prior volition, 
and so on in infinitum. Hence arises a contradiction. The first 
act of a series cannot be free, for it must have another before it ; 
if the first act is not free, none of the subsequent acts can be free. 
It may be urged in reply, that there is no prior act determining a 
free volition, but that the act of determining is the same with 
the act of willing. The effect of this reply is, that the free voli- 
tion is determined by nothing ; it is entirely uncaused. Instead, 
therefore, of saying the will is self-determined, the proper ex- 
pression would be indeter mined, Indeterminism thus affirms that 
our volitions do not arise from any causes. It therefore contra- 
dicts the law of causality. Cause is sometimes defined as that 
which has a positive efficiency to produce an effect ; but, in this 
sense, the absence of the sun would not be the cause of the fall of 
dew. A cause is the reason or ground why an event happens so 
and not otherwise ; it is an antecedent firmly conjoined with its 
consequent. In this sense, everything that begins to be, must 
have a cause. This is a dictate of common sense, and the basis 
of all reasoning on things past, present, and to come. If things 
may exist without a cause, there is no possible proof for the 
existence of God. JSTay more, we could be sure of nothing but 
what was present to our consciousness. 

Indeterminism is sometimes made to depend on the active 
nature of the soul. Material events may require causes, bat voli- 
tions do not depend on causes, or rather (for the sake of verbally 
saving causality) the soul is the cause of its volitions. Edwards 
answers, that this may explain why the soul acts at all, but not 



418 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

why it acts in a particular manner. And, unless the soul produce 
diverse acts, it cannot produce diverse effects, otherwise the same 
cause, in the same circumstances, would produce different effects 
at different times. In order, however, to demonstrate the futility 
of the argument drawn from the activity of the soul, it is neces- 
sary to examine carefully the notions of Action and Passion. It is 
said, by Dr. Clarke, that a necessary agent is a self-contradiction. 
Action excludes a moving cause, because to be an effect is to be 
passive. This is to build a demonstration on an arbitrary defini- 
tion of a word. Edwards sums up the contradictions involved in 
the notion of activity as follows: — 'To their notion of action, 
these things are essential — viz., That it should be necessary, and 
not necessary ; that it should be from a cause, and no cause ; that 
it should be the fruit of choice or design, and not the fruit of 
choice or design ; that it should be the beginning of motion or 
exertion, and yet consequent on previous exertion ; that it should 
be before it is ; that it should spring immediately out of indiffer- 
ence, and yet be the effect of preponderation ; that it should be 
self- originated, and also have its original from something else.' 
Absurd and inconsistent with itself, this metaphysical idea of action 
is entirely different from the common notion. The usual meaning 
of action is bodily movement : less strictly, heat is said to act 
upon wax. According to usage, action never means self-deter- 
mination. Action may have a cause other than the agent, as 
easily as life may have a cause other than the living being. The 
same thing may be both cause and effect in respect of different 
objects. Metaphysicians have changed the meaning of the words 
' action' and ' necessity,' but keep up the old attributes in spite of 
the new and distinct application of the term. 

3. Liberty of Indifference. The will is alleged to be able to 
choose between two things equally attractive to the mind. But 
there never is such a perfect equality. Suppose I wish to touch 
any one spot on a chess-board, I genera-lly accomplish it by some 
such steps as the following : — I make first a general resolution to 
touch some one, then determine to select one by chance — to touch 
what is nearest or most in the eye at some moment, and lastly I 
fix upon some one selected under those conditions. But at no 
step is there any equilibrium of motives. Among several objects, 
some one will catch the eye ; ideas are not equally strong in the 
mind at one moment, or if so, they do not long continue. It 
must be kept distinctly in view, that what the will is more imme- 
diately concerned with, is not the objects, but the acts to be done 
concerning them. The objects may appear equal, but among 
the acts to be done affecting them, one may be decidedly pre- 
ferable. 

If indifference is regarded as essential to liberty, several absurd 
consequences follow. Indifference is often sinful. It is a state 
in which a man is as ready to choose, as to avoid, sin. It is 
destroyed by the presence of any habitual bias, and such bias can 
be neither virtuous nor vicious. The nearer habits of virtue are 



FREE-WILL CONTKOVEKSY — EDWAEDS. 419 

to infallibility, the less are they free and praiseworthy. Indiffer- 
ence is inconsistent wiJh regarding any disposition or quality of 
mind as either virtuous or vicious. So in proportion to the strength 
of a motive, liberty is destroyed. Hence moral suasion is opposed 
to freedom. Finally, a choice without motive, and for no end, 
can have neither prudence nor wisdom in it. 

4. Contingence is involved in liberty. But this cannot be, for 
no event happens without a cause. Hence events are necessarily 
connected with their causes, by which, however, Edwards means 
only that they invariably follow their causes. His definition of 
cause is correct ; his only error was in retaining the word 
* necessity' with its irrelevant and misleading associations. 

5. The influence of motives. It is generally allowed that no 
volition takes place without a motive ; but the mind, it Is alleged, 
has the power of complying with the motive or not. This is a 
plain contradiction. How can the mind determine what motives 
shall influence it, and yet the motives be the ground or reason of 
its determination? Again, it is urged that volition does not 
follow the strongest motive. If not, then it must follow the 
weaker, that is, pro tanto, it acts without any motive. This is to 
contradict the law of cause and effect, and was, Edwards con- 
ceived, a perfect reductio ad ahsurdum. He did not anticipate that 
any one would impugn the universality of cause and effect. 

6. Foreknowledge. The great point that Edwards sought to 
establish was that prescience involved as much necessity as pre- 
destination, and that, therefore, the extreme position of the Cal- 
vinists was as tenable as any that could be taken up by a theist. 
In the first place, it is evident from Scripture that God has a cer- 
tain foreknowledge of the voluntary actions of men. ^ow, if 
volitions were contingent events, they could not be foreknown, 
because nothing can be known without evidence, and for a con- 
tingent event no evidence can be produced. A contingent event 
is not self-evident, and it cannot be evident from its connexion 
with any other event, for connexion destroys contingence. Nor 
is it an admissible supposition that God may have ways of knowing 
that we cannot conceive of. For it is a contradiction to suppose 
an event known as certain, and, at the same time, as uncertain. 
Another evasion is, that knowledge can have no influence on the 
thing known. Granted, but prescience may prove that an event is 
certain, without being the cause of its certainty. Certainty of 
knowledge does not make an infallible connexion between things, 
but it pre-supposes such a connexion. Again, it is said that with 
God there is no distinction of before and after ; time is with him 
an eternal noiu. Edwards admits that there is no succession in 
God's knowledge, but observes that knowledge, whether before or 
after, implies the certainty of the thing known. If an event is 
known by him as certain, then it will most assuredly happen. 

7. Is liherty essential to morality ? The essence of virtue is 
supposed to consist, not in the nature of the acts of the will, but 
in their cause. But it is more consistent with common opinion to 



420 LIBEKTY AND KECESSITY. 

regard moral evil as a deformity in the nature of certain disposi- 
tions and volitions. Ingratitude is hateful, not on account of the 
badness of its cause, but on account of its inherent deformity. 
It is true that our bodily movements are not in themselves either 
virtuous or vicious, but only the volitions and dispositions that 
produce them. This relation is erroneously supposed to exist 
between our volitions and some inner determining volitions. But 
mankind do not refer praise and blame to any occult causes of 
the will; they blame a man who does as he pleases, and who 
pleases to do wrong. When they ascribe an action to a man, they 
mean merely that the action is voluntary, not that it is self- 
determined. Their only conception of freedom is freedom from 
compulsion or restraint. They praise a man for his amiability, 
the gift of nature, as much as if it were the result of severe 
discipline. The will of God is necessarily good, but it is never- 
theless praiseworthy. Although necessity is, therefore, perfectly 
compatible with praise and blame, it is nevertheless easy to under- 
stand how the opposite opinion should be generally entertained. 
Constraint is the proper and original meaning of necessity. Now, 
constraint is totally inconsistent with punishment and reward. 
Hence arises a strong association between blamelessness and ne- 
cessity. "When the word necessity is taken up by philosophers as 
the equivalent for certainty of connexion, the associated idea of 
blamelessness is carried insensibly and unwarily into the new mean- 
ing. But Edwards did not draw the obvious inference, that the 
word 'necessity' should be discarded from the controversy. 

8. Practical Consequences, (1) Does the doctrine of necessity 
render efforts towards an end nugatory ? This could only be 
said, if the doctrine affirmed, either that the event might follow 
without the means, or that the event might not follow, although 
the means was used. Does the doctrine of necessity effect any 
such rupture between means and ends ? On the contrary, the 
certainty of the connexion between means and ends is the doctrine 
itself. (2) Does necessity lead to atheism and licentiousness ? 
Edwards retorts on Liberty the charge of Atheism. How can 
the existence of God be proved ^vithout the principle that every 
change must have a cause ? And how can it be maintained that 
every cha,nge has a cause, when the entire realm of volition is 
emancipated from causation ? As to the charge of licentiousness, 
Edwards points to the exemplary conduct of the Calvinists, in con- 
trast to the looseness that often coexists with Arminian doctrines. 

Price, contending with Priestley, followed the view brought 
forward by Dr. Clarke. He defined liberty as a power of self- 
motion, and took up the following positions. (1) All animals 
possess spontaneity, and therefore liberty. (2) Liberty does not 
admit of degrees ; between acting and not acting there is no 
middle course. (3) This liberty is possible. There must be some- ■ 
where a power of beginning motion, and we are conscious of such 
a power in ourselves. (4) In our volitions, we are not acted upon. 
(5) Liberty does not exclude the operation of motives. The j)ower 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — PRIESTLEY. 421 

of self-determination can never be excited without some view or 
design. But it is an intolerable absurdity to make our motives or 
ends tlie physical causes of action. Our ideas may be the occasion 
of our acting, but are certainly not mechanical efficients. 

Priestley, in his controversy with Price, maintained the 
following positions : — 

1. He denied that our consciousness is in favour of free- 
dom. All we believe is that we have power to do what we will or 
please. To will without a motive, or contrary to the influence of 
all the motives presented to the mind, is what no man can be con- 
scious of. The mind cannot choose without some inclination or 
preference for the thing chosen. To ' deny this, is to deny that 
every change must have a cause. 

2. Philosophical necessity is consistent with accountability. 
Punishment has an improving effect both on our own future 
conduct, and on the conduct of others ; this is the meaning of 
justness of jjunishment. To say that one is praiseworthy means 
that he is actuated by good principles, and is therefore an object 
of love, and a fit person to be made happy. 

3. Permission of EviL As regards God, there is no distinction 
between permitting and appointing evil. In the case of man, the 
difference is great, for his power of interference and control is 
limited. In creating any man, God must foresee and accept all 
the consequences. Whatever reasons can be produced to show why 
God permits evil, will be available to justify his appointing it. 

4. Remorse and Pardon, Priestley admits that it sounds harsh, 
but affirms it nevertheless to be true, that ' in all those crimes men 
reproach themselves with, God is the agent ; and that they are no 
more agents than a sword.' Actions may be referred to the pei*- 
sons themselves as secondary causes, but they must also be traced 
to the first cause. Mankind at first necessarily refer their actions 
to themselves, a conviction that becomes deeply rooted, before 
they begin to regard themselves as instruments in the hands of a 
superior agent. Self-applause and self-reproach have their origin 
in the narrower view, and cease when we refer our actions to the 
first great cause. The necessitarian believing that, strictly speak- 
ing, nothing goes wrong f whatever is, is right J^ cannot accuse 
himself of wrong doing. He has, therefore, nothing to do with 
repentance, confession, or pardon. This state of feeling, however, 
is a high and rare attainment ; when the necessitarian mechani- 
cally refers his actions to himself, he will no doubt feel as others. 

This admission by Priestley that remorse is inconsistent with 
necessity, has been turned to great account by Eeid ; but although 
the statement is very unguarded, it contains a portion of the 
truth. We may look -upon a person's conduct in two aspects — 
in its effects, or in its causes. In its effects, it may be very hostile 
to human happiness, or the reverse. From this point of view, 
resentment and approbation are the spontaneous response of feel- 
ing ; punishment and reward are clearly appropriate. On the 
other hand, we may confine our attention to the causes of the 
20 



422 LIBEKTY AND NECESSITY. 

man's conduct — his circumstances, education, and opinions. In 
several ways, this tends to discourage angry feeling, and to arouse 
sympathy and pity. In the first place, we are looking away from 
the effects of the conduct, and the considerations that justify and 
require punishment ; in the next j)lace, we may reflect that, in 
like circumstances, we might not have done better ourselves ; 
then, the conduct may have resulted from a weak moral nature, 
in which case we are always more ready to pity than to punish ; 
and, lastly, since we are at the scientific point of view, there is 
strongly suggested the conception of resistless sequence — a notion 
strictly applicable to many material phenomena, but incorrect 
as to human actions. 

5. Priestley considered that materialism, to which he sub- 
scribed, involved the doctrine of necessity. 

Reid has devoted a large part of his work on The Active 
Foivers, to the discussion of the Liberty of Moral Agents. 

I. — The Nature of Liberty. He defines liberty to be a power 
over the determinations of one's "Will. Necessity is when the will 
follows something involuntary in the state of mind, or something 
external. Moral liberty does not apply to all voluntary actions ; 
many such are done by instinct or habit, without reflection, and 
so without will. It is a power not enjoyed in infancy, but only 
in riper years. It extends as far as we are accountable ; in 
short, freedom is the sine qua non of praise or blame. In order 
still farther to clear up the conception of liberty, Eeid devotes 
two chapters to explain the notion of cause. Everything that 
changes must either change itself, or be changed by some other 
being. In the one case, it has active power, in the other case it is 
acted upon or passive. His definition of cause is, — that which has 
power to produce an effect. We are efficient causes in our deU- 
herate and voluntary actions. We cannot will deliberately without 
believing that the thing willed is in our power [we may, if we 
merely expect the effect to follow]. We have a conviction of 
power to produce motion in our own bodies. To be an efficient 
cause is to be a free agent ; a necessary agent is a contradiction in 
terms. In thus identifying freedom with power, Eeid follows 
Clarke and Price, exposing himself to the refutation of Jonathan 
Edwards, not to mention the criticism of Sir W. Hamilton. 

II. — Arguments in Support of Free-ivill. 1. We have by our 
constitution, a natural conviction or belief, that we act freely. 
The existence of such a belief is admitted by some fatalists them- 
selves [Hamilton mentions Hommel, and also Lord Kames, who, 
however, withdrew the incautious admission]. The very notion 
of active power must arise from our constitution. We see events, 
but we see no potency nor chain linking one to the other, and there- 
fore the notion of cause is not derived from external objects. Yet 
it is an unshaken conviction of the mind that every event has a 
cause that had power to produce it. (1) We are conscious of exer- 
cising power to produce some efiect, and this implies a belief that 
we have power to produce th.(i desired effect. [It, in truth, only 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — REID. 423 

implies a belief that tlie effect will certainly happen, if we wish it.] 
(2) Can any one blame himself for yielding to necessity? Eemorse 
implies a conviction that we could have done better. Eeid further 
explains what he means by the actions that are in our power. 
We have no conception of power that is not directed by the will. 
But there are many things that depend on our will that are not 
in our power. Madmen, idiots, infants, people in a violent rage, 
have not the power of self-government. Likewise, the violence 
of a motive, or an inveterate habit, diminishes liberty. 

2. Liberty is involved in accountability. To be accountable, a 
man must understand the law by which he is bound, and his obli- 
gations to obey it ; and he must have power to do what he is 
accountable for. So far as man's power over himself extends, so 
far is he accountable. Hence violent passion limits responsibility. 
It is said that to constitute an action criminal, it need only be 
voluntary. Eeid says, more is necessary, namely, moral liberty. 
For (1) the actions of brutes are voluntary, but not criminal. 
(2) So are the actions of young children. (3) Madmen have 
understanding and vdll, but no moral liberty, and hence are not 
criminal. (4) An irresistible motive palliates or takes away guilt. 

3. Man's power over his volitions is proved by the fact that he 
can prosecute a series of means towards an end. A plan of con- 
duct requires understanding to contrive and power to execute it. 
Now, if each volition in the series was produced not by the man 
himself, but by some cause acting necessarily upon him, there is 
no evidence that he contrived the plan. The cause that directed 
the determinations, must have understood the plan, and intended 
the execution of it. Motives could not have done it, for they have 
not understanding to conceive a plan. 

Ill— Refutation of the Argument for Necessity. 1. The influence 
of motives. (1) Eeid allows that motives influence to action, but 
they do not act. Upon this. Sir W. Hamilton remarks that if 
motives influence to action, they co-operate in producing a certain 
effect upon the agent. They are thus, on Eeid's own view, 
causes, and efficient causes. It is of no consequence in the argu- 
ment, whether motives be said to determine a nian to act, or to 
influence (that is to determine) him to determine himself to act. 
(2) Eeid goes on to say that it' is the glory of rational beings to 
act according to the best motives. God can do everything ; it is 
his praise that ho does only what is best. But according to 
Hamilton, this is just one of the insoluble contradictions in the 
question. If we attribute to the Deity the power of moral evil, 
we detract from his essential goodness ; and if, on the other hand, 
we deny him this power, we detract from his omnipotence. (3) Is 
there a motive in every action ? Eeid thinks not. Many trifling 
actions are done without any conscious motive. Stewart dis- 
agrees with Eeid in this remark ; and Hamilton observes : — 
* Can we conceive any act of which there was not a sufficient 
cause, or concourse of causes, why the man performed it and 
no other? If not, call this cause, or these concauses, the 



424 LIBERTY AND NECESSITr. 

motive^ and there is no longer a dispute.' (4) It cannot be 
proved that when there is a motive on one side only, that 
motive must determine the action. Is there no such thing as 
wilfulness, caprice, or obstinacy ? But ' Are not those all ten- 
dencies, and fatal tendencies, to act or not to act?' (5) Does 
the strongest motive prevail ? If the test of the strongest 
motive is that it prevails, then the proposition is identical. 
The determination is made by the man, and not by the motive. 
*But was the man determined by no motive to that deter- 
mination ? Was his specific volition to this or to that without a 
cause ? On the supposition that the sum of influences (motives, 
dispositions, tendencies) to volition A, is equal to 12, and the sum 
of influences to counter volition B, equal to 8, can we conceive that 
the determination of volition A should not be necessary ? We can 
only conceive the volition B to be determined by supposing that 
the man creates (calls from non-existence into existence) a certain 
supplement of influences. But this creation as actual, or in itself, 
is inconceivable, and even to conceive the possibility of this incon- 
ceivable act, we must suppose some cause by which the man is 
determined to exert it. We thus, in thought, never escape deter- 
mination and necessity.' (6) It is very weak reasoning to infer from 
our power of predicting men's actions that they are necessarily 
determined by motives. Liberty is a power that men use accord- 
ing to their character. The wise use it wisely, the foolish, foolishly. 
(7) The doctrine of liberty does not render rewards and punish- 
ments of no effect. With wise men they will have their due 
effect, but not always with the foolish and vicious. 

2. The principle of sufficient Reason. Heid makes a long 
criticism of this principle, as enounced by Leibnitz ; but all refer- 
ence to that may be omitted, since in so far as it applies to the 
present question, the principle is identical with the law of cause 
and effect. Eeid's answer is that the man is the cause of action, 
but this evasion, as we have seen, has been refuted by Hamilton. 

3. Every determination of the mind is foreseen by God, it is 
therefore necessary. This necessity may result in three ways : (1) 
a thing cannot be foreknown without being certain, or certain 
without being necessary. But there is no rule of reasoning from 
which it may be inferred that because an event necessarily shall 
be, therefore its production must be necessary. Its being certain 
does not determine whether it shall be freely or necessarily pro- 
duced. (2) An event must be necessary because it is foreseen. 
Not so, for knowledge has no effect upon the thing kno^vn. God 
foresees his own future actions, but his foresight does not make 
them necessary. (3) No free action can be foreseen. This would 
prevent God foreseeing his own actions. Reid admits that there 
is no knowledge of future contingent actions in man. The 
prescience of God must therefore differ, not only in degree but in 
kind from our knowledge. Although we have no such know- 
ledge, God may have. There is also a great analogy between the 
prescience of future contingents and the memory of past contin- 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY — HAMILTON. 425 

gents. Hamilton refutes this assertion. A past contingent is a 
contradiction, in becoming past.it forthwith becomes necessary — 
it cannot but be. ' Now, so far is it from being true, as Reid soon 
after says, that every * ' argument to prove the impossibility of 
prescience (as the knowledge of future contingents) proves, v/ith 
equal force, the impossibility of memory " (as the knowledge of 
past contingents), that the possibility of a memory of events as 
contingent was, I believe, never imagined by any philosopher — nor, 
in reality, is it by Eeid himself. And, in fact, one of the most 
iasoluble objections to the possibility of a free agency, arises (on 
the admission that all future events are foreseen by God) from 
the analogy of prescience to memory, it being impossible for the 
human mind to reconcile the supposition that an event may or 
may not occur, and the supposition that one of these alternatives 
has been foreseen as certain.' 

Sir W. Hamilton occupies a peculiar position in regard to the 
present question. He demolishes all the chief popular arguments 
in favour of liberty, and rests the defence on his own Law of 
the Conditioned. At the same time, he attributes an exaggerated 
importance to Free-will, as being not only the foundation of 
morality, but the only doctrine from which we can legitimately 
infer the existence of God. The phenomena that requii-e a deity 
for their explanation are exclusively mental : the phenomena of 
matter, taken by themselves, would ground even an argument to 
his negation. Fate or necessity might account for the material 
world ; it is only because man is a free intelligence that a creator 
must be supposed endowed with free intelligence. 

Hamilton admits, what is shown by Edwards, that the con- 
ception of an undetermined will is inconceivable. He thus dis- 
poses of the argument that the person is the cause of his volitions. 
* But is the person an original undetermined cause of the deter- 
mination of his will ? If he be not, then is he not a free agent, 
and the scheme of Necessity is admitted. If he be, in the first 
place, it is impossible to conceive the possibility of this ; and, in 
the second, if the fact, though inconceivable, be allowed, it is im- 
possible to see how a cause, undetermined hy any motive, can be a 
rational, moral, and accountahle cause. There is no conceivable 
medium between Fatalism and Casualism : and the contradictory 
schemes of Liberty and Necessity themselves are inconceivable. 
For, as we cannot compass in thought an undetermined cause, — 
an absolute commencement — the fundamental hypothesis of the one ; 
so we can as little think an infinite series of determined causes — of 
relative commencements, — the fundamental hypothesis of the other. 
The champions of the opposite doctrines are thus at once resistless 
in assault, and impotent in defence. The doctrine of Moral 
Liberty cannot be made conceivable, for we can only conceive the 
determined and the relative. As already stated, all that can be 
done is to show, (1) That, for the fact of Liberty, we have, im- 
mediately or mediately, the evidence of consciousness; and (2), 
that there are, among the phenomena of mind^ many facts which 



426 LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 

we must admit as actual, but of whose possibility we are wholly 
unable to form any notion.' Again, ' A determination by motives 
cannot, to our understanding, escape from necessitation. Nay, 
were we even to admit as true, what we cannot think as possible, 
still the doctrine of a motiveless volition would be only casualism ; 
and the free acts of an indifferent, are, morally and rationally, as 
worthless as the preordered passion of a determined, will.' 

From his own point of view, Hamilton is free to expose the 
inconsistency of those who accept the law of causality, and yet 
make the will an exception. If causality and freedom are 
equally positive dictates of consciousness, there can be no ground 
for subordinating one of these dictates to the other. But by re- 
garding causality as an impotence of thought, Hamilton thinks 
he can bring forward consciousness in favour of liberty. This fact 
of freedom is given either as an undoubted datum of consciousniess, 
or as involved in an uncompromising law of duty. 

In the last clause there is a reference to Kant's doctrine of 
Freedom.- This will be stated in its proper connexion with his 
Ethical doctrine. [Ethical Systems.] 

J. S. Mill, in his Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Phi- 
losophy, has given a chapter to the Freedom of the Will. His 
polemic is chiefly against the theory of Sir W. Hamilton, whose 
attempt to create a prejudice in favour of his o^\ti peculiar views, 
by representing them as affording the only solid argument in sup- 
port of the existence of God, Mr. Mill characterizes as ' not only 
repugnant to all the rules of philosophizing, but a grave offence 
against the morality of philosophic enquiry.' Both Hamilton and 
Mill are agreed upon the question at issue — namely, whether our 
volitions are emancipated from causation altogether. Both reject 
the evasion that * I ' am the cause. 

1. The evidence of experience* Mr. Mill begins by conced- 
ing to Hamilton the inconceivability of an absolute com- 
m.encement and an infinite regress. This double inconceivability 
applies, not only to voHtions, but to all other events. Why 
then do we in regard to all events, except volitions, accept the 
alternative of regress ? Because the causation-h;^^othesis is 
established by experience. But there is the same evidence in the 
case of our volitions. The antecedents are desires, aversions, 
habits, dispositions, and outward circumstances. The connexion 
between those antecedents and volitions is proved by every one's 
experience of themselves, by our observation of others, by our 
predicting their actions, and by the results of statistics. Where 
prediction, is uncertain, it is because of the imperfection of our 
knowledge ; we can predict more accurately the conduct of men, 

* The evidence of experience is admitted by Mr. Mansel to be in favour 
of necessity : — * Were it not for the direct testimony of my own conscious- 
ness to my own freedom, I could regard human actions only as necessary 
links in the endless chain of phenomenal cause and effect.' Mansel's 
Metaphysics^ p. 168. 



FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY— J. S. MILL. 427 

than the changes of the weather. Hence a volition follows its 
moral causes, as a physical event follows its physical causes. 
Whether it must do so, Mr. Mill professes himself to be ignorant, 
and therefore condemns the use of the word necessity, but he 
knows that it always does. 

2. The testimony of Consciousness, The evidence that decided 
Sir W. Hamilton was consciousness. "We are either directly con- 
scious of freedom, or indirectly through moral obligation. Mr. Mill 
examines first, whether we are conscious of free-will, whether 
before decision, we are conscious of being able to decide either 
way. Properly speaking, this is a fact we cannot possibly be 
conscious of, as we are conscious only of what ^s, not of what will 
he. We know we can do a thing only by doing it. The belief in 
freedom must, therefore, be an interpretation of past experience. 
This internal feeling of freedom implies that we could have decided 
the other way ; but, the truth is, not unless we preferred that 
way. When we imagine ourselves acting differently from what 
we did, we think of a change in the antecedents, as by knowing 
something that we did not know, Mr. Mill therefore altogether 
disputes the assertion that we are conscious of being able to act in 
opposition to the strongest present desire or aversion. 

3. Accountability, Mr. Mill then examines whether moral 
responsibility involves freedom from causation. Eesponsibility 
means either that we expect to be punished for certain acts, or 
that we should deserve punishment for those acts. The first 
alternative may be thrown out of account. The question then is, 
whether free-will is involved in the justness of punishment. In 
this discussion, Mr. Mill assumes no particular theory of morals ; it 
is enough that a difference between right and wrong be admitted, 
arid a natural preference for the right. Whoever does wrong 
becomes a natural object of active dislike, and perhaps of punish- 
ment. The liability of the wrong-doer to be thus called to 
account has probably much to do with the feeling of being 
accountable. Oriental despots and persons of a superior caste 
show not the least feeling of accountability to their inferiors. 
Moreover, if there were a race of men, as mischievous as 
lions and tigers, we should treat them precisely as we treat wild 
beasts, although they acted necessarily ; so that the most stringent 
form of fatalism is not inconsistent with putting a high value on 
goodness, nor with the existence of approbation and penalties. 
The real question, however, is — Would the punishment be just ? 
Is it just to punish a man for what he cannot help ? Certainly it 
is, if punishment is the only means by which he can be enabled 
to help it. Punishment is inflicted as a means towards an end, 
but if there is no efHcacy in the means to procure the end, that is to 
say, if our volitions are not determined by motives, then punish- 
ment is without justification. If an end is justifiable, the sole and 
necessary means to that end must be justifiable. N"ow, the Ne- 
cessitarian Theory proceeds upon two ends, — the benefit of the 
offender himself, and the protection of others. To punish a child 



428 LIBEI^TT AND NlT^KSSiTT. 

for its benefit is no more unjust than to administer medicine. In 
the defence of just rights, punishment must also be just. The 
feeling of accountability is then nothing more than the knowledge 
that punishment will be just. Nor is this o. petit io principii. Mr. Mill 
considers himself entitled to assume the reality of moral distinc- 
tions, such reality not depending on any theory of the will. If this 
account should not be considered sufficient, how can we justify the 
punishment of crimes committed in obedience to a perverted con- 
science ? Eavaillac and Balthasar Gerard regarded themselves as 
heroic martyrs. No person capable of being operated upon by the 
fear of punishment, will ever feel punishment for wrong- doing to 
be unjust. 

4. Necessity is not Fatalism, The doctrine of Necessity is clearly 
distinguishable^ from Fatalism. Pure fatalism holds that our 
actions do not depend on our desires. A superior power overrides 
our wishes, and bends us according to its will. Modified fatalism 
proceeds upon the determination of our will by motives, but holds 
that our character is made for us and not by us, so that we are not 
responsible for our actions, and should in vain attempt to alter 
them. The true doctrine of causation holds that in so far as our 
character is amenable to moral discipline, we can improve it, if we 
desire. According to Mr. Mansel, such a theory of moral causation 
is really fatalism. ' Yet Kant held that the capability of predict- 
ing our actions does not destroy freedom : it is only in the forma- 
tion of our character that we are free; and he almost admits 
that our actions necessarily follow from our character. But, in 
truth, the volitions tending to improve our character are as 
capable of being predicted as any voluntary actions. And neces- 
sity means only this possibility of being foreseen, so that we 
are no more free in the formation of our character, than in our 
subseciuent volitions. 

0. The influence of Motives. Mr. Mansel, following Eeid, has 
denied that the strongest motive prevails, since there is no test of 
the strength of a motive but its ultimate prevalence. But (1) the 
strongest motive means the motive strongest in relation to pleasure 
and pain. (2) Even if the test referred to was the will, the pro- 
position would still not be unmeaning. "We say of two weights in a 
pair of scales, that the heavier will lift the other up ; although we 
mean by the heavier only the weight that will lift the other up. 
This proposition implies that in most cases there is a heavier, and 
that this is always the same one, not one or the other, as it may 
happen. So also if there be motives uniformly followed by 
certain volitions, the free-will theory is not saved. 



APPENDIX. 



A. — History of Nominalism and Realism^ p. 181. 

The controversy respecting Universals first obtained its place 
in philosophy from the colloquies of Sokrates, and the writings 
and teachings of Plato. We need not here touch upon their pre- 
decessors Parmenides and Heracleitus, who, in a confused and 
unsytematic manner, approached this question from opposite 
sides, and whose speculations worked much upon the mind of 
Plato in determining both his aggressive dialectic, and his con- 
structive theories. Parmenides of Elea, improving upon the ruder 
conceptions of Xenophanes, was the first to give emphatic pro- 
clamation to the celebrated Eleatie doctrine. Absolute Ens as 
opposed to Relative Fientia : i.e., the Cogitable, which Parmenides 
conceived as the One and All of reality, ''Ej/ Kal Udv, enduring and 
unchangeable, of which the negative was unmeaning; and the 
Sensible or Perceivable, which was in perpetual change, succes- 
sion, and multiplicity, without either unity, or reality, or endur- 
ance. To the last of these two departments Heracleitus assigned 
especial prominence. In place of the permanent underlying Ens, 
which he did not recognize, he substituted a cogitable process of 
change, or generalized concept of what was common to all the 
successive phases of change — a perpetual stream of generation and 
destruction, or implication of contraries, in which everything 
appeared only that it might disappear, without endurance or 
uniformity. In this doctrine of Heracleitus, the world of sense 
and particulars could not be the object either of certain knowledge 
or even of correct probable opinion ; in that of Parmenides, it was 
recognized as an object of probable opinion, though not of certain 
knowledge. But in both doctrines, as well as in the theories of 
Democritus, it was degraded, and presented as incapable of yield- 
ing satisfaction to the search of a philosophizing mind, which 
could find neither truth nor reality except in the world of Concepts 
and Cogitata. 

Besides the two theories above-mentioned, there were current 
in the Hellenic world, before the maturity of Sokrates, several 
other veins of speculation about the Cosmos, totally divergent 
one from the other, and by that very divergence sometimes stimu- 
lating curiosity, sometimes discouraging all study, as though the 



2 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

problems were hopeless. But Parmenides and Heracleitus, to- 
gether with the arithmetical and geometrical hypotheses of the 
Pythagoreans, are expressly noticed by Aristotle as having sjjecially 
contributed to form the philosophy of Plato. 

Neither Parmenides, nor Heracleitus, nor the Pythagoreans, 
were Dialecticians. They gave out their own thoughts in their 
own way, with little or no regard to dissentients. They did 
not cultivate the art of argumentative attack or defence, nor the 
correct application and diversified confrontation of universal terms, 
which are the great instruments of that art. It was Zeno, the dis- 
ciple of Parmenides, that first employed Dialectic in support of his 
master's theory, or rather against the counter theories of oppo- 
nents. He showed, by arguments memorable for their subtlety, 
that the hypothesis of an Absolute, composed of Entia Plura Lis- 
continua, led to consequences even more absurd than those that 
opponents deduced from the Parmenidean hypothesis of Ens Unum 
Continuum. The Dialectic, thus inaugurated by Zeno, reached 
still higher perfection in the colloquies of Sokrates ; who not only 
employed a new method, but also introduced new topics of debate 
— ethical, political, and social matters instead of physics and the 
Cosmos. 

The peculiar originality of Sokrates is well known : a man who 
wrote nothing, but passed his life in indiscriminate colloquy with 
every one ; who professed to have no knowledge himself, but in- 
terrogated others on matters that they talked about familiarly 
and professed to know well ; whose colloquies generally ended by 
puzzling the respondents, and by proving to themselves that they 
neither knew nor could explain even matters that they had 
begun by affirming confidently as too clear to need explana- 
tion. Aristotle tells us* that Sokrates was the first that set him- 
self expressly and methodically to scrutinize the definitions of 
general or universal terms, a.nd to confront them, not merely with 
each other, but also, by a sort of inductive process, with many 
particular cases that were, or appeared to be, included under 
them. And both Xenophon and Plato give us abundant ex- 
amples of the terms to which Socrates applied his interroga- 
tories: — What is the Holy? What is the Unholy? What is the 
Beautiful or Honourable ? What is the Ugly or Base ? What is 
Justice — Injustice — Temperance — Madness — Courage — Cowardice 
— A City — A. man fit for civil life ? What is the Command of Men ? 
What is the character fit for commanding men? Such are the 
specimens, furnished by a hearer, t of the universal terms whereon 
the interrogatories of Sokrates bore. All of them were terms 
spoken and heard familiarly by citizens in the market-j)lace, as if 
each understood them perfectly; but when Sokrates, professing 
his own ignorance, put questions asking for solutions of difficul- 
ties that perplexed his own mind, the answers showed that these 

* Metaphysics, A. 987, b. 2; M. 1078, b. 18. 
t Xenophon Memorab. I. 1, IG ; IV. G, 1-13, 



SOKKATES ON UNIVERSAL TERMS. 3 

difficulties were equally insoluble by respondents, wbo had never 
tbougbt of them before. The confident persuasion of knowledge, 
with which the colloquy began, stood exposed as a false persua- 
sion without any basis of reality. Such illusory semblance of 
knowledge was proclaimed by Sokrates to be the chronic, though 
unconscious, intellectual condition of his contemporaries. How he 
undertook, as the mission of a long life, to expose it, is impres- 
sively set forth in the Platonic Apology, 

It was thus by Sokrates that the meaning of universal terms 
and universal propositions, and the relation of each respectively 
to particular terms and particular propositions, were first made a 
subject of express enquiry and analytical interrogation. His 
influence was powerful in imparting the same dialectic impulse 
to several companions : but most of all to Plato : who not only 
enlarged and amplified the range of Sokratic enquiry, but also 
brought the meaning of universal terms into something like 
system and theory, as a portion of the conditions of trustworthy 
science. Plato was the first to affirm the doctrine afterwards 
called Realism, as the fundamental postulate of all true and 
proved cognition. He affirmed it boldly, and in its most ex- 
tended sense, though he also produces (according to his frequent 
practice) many powerful arguments and unsolved objections 
against it. It was he (to use the striking phrase of Milton *) 
that first imported into the schools the portent of Realism. The 
doctrine has been since opposed, confuted, curtailed, transformed, 
diversified in many ways : but it has maintained its place in 
logical speculation, and has remained, under one phraseology or 
another, the creed of various philosophers, from that time down 
to the present. 

The following account of the problems of Realism Avas handed 
down to the speculations of the mediaeval philosophers, by 
Porhpyry (between 270-300 A.D.), in his Introduction to the 
treatise of Aristotle on the Categories. After informing 
Chrysaorius that he will prepare for him a concise statement 
of the doctrines of the old philosophers respecting Genus, Dif- 
ferentia, Species, Proprium, Accidens — * abstaining from the 
deeper enquiries, but giving suitable development to the more 
simple,' — Porphyry thus proceeds — * For example, I shall decline 
discussing, in respect to Genera and Species — (1) Whether they 
have a substantive existence, or reside merely in naked mental 
conceptions; (2) Whether, assuming them to have substantive 
existence, they are bodies or incorporeals ; (3) Whether their 
substantive existence is in and along with the objects of sense, or 
apart and separable. Upon this task I shall not enter, since it is 
of the greatest depth, and requires another larger investigation; 
but shall try at once to show you how the ancients (especially 

* See the Latin verses — De Idea Platonica quemadmodum Aristoteles 
irtellexit — 

* At tu, perenne ruris Academi decus, 
Hsec monstra si tu primus icduxti scholis/ &c. 



4 APPENDIX— NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

the Peripatetics), with a view to logical discourse, dealt with the 
topics now propounded.' * 

Before Porphyry, all these three problems had been largely 
debated, first by Plato, next by Aristotle against Plato, again by 
the Stoics against both, and lastly by Plotinus and the Neo- 
Platonists as conciliators of Plato with Aristotle. After Porphyry, 
problems the same, or similar, continued to stand in the fore- 
ground of speculation, until the authority of Aristotle became 
discredited at all points by the influences of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries. But in order to find the beginning of 
them, as questions provoking curiosity and opening dissentient 
points of view to inventive dialecticians, we must go back to the 
age and the dialogues of Plato. 

The real Sokrates {i.e., as he is described by Xenophon) incul- 
cated in his conversation steady reverence for the invisible, as 
apart from and overriding the phenomena of sensible experience : 
but he interpreted the term in a religious sense, as signifying the 
agency of the personal gods, employed to produce effects beneficial 
or injurious to mankind. f He also puts forth his dialectic acute- 
ness to prepare consistent and tenable definitions of familiar 
general terms (of which instances have already been given), 
at least so far as to make others feel, for the first time, that 
they did not understand these terms, though they had been 
always talking like persons that did understand. But the Platonic 
Sokrates (i.e., as spokesman in the dialogues of Plato) enlarges 
both these discussions materially. Plato recognizes, not simply 
the invisible persons or gods, but also a separate world of in- 
visible, impersonal entities or objects : one of which he postulates 
as the objective reality, though only a cogitable reality, correlating 
with each general term. These Entia he considers to be not merely 
distinct realities, but the only true and knowable realities : they 
are eternal and unchangeable, manifested by the fact that parti- 
culars partake in them, and imparting a partial show of stability 
to the indeterminate flux of particulars : and unless such separate 
Universal Entia be supposed, there is nothing whereon cognition 
can fasten, and consequently there can be no cognition at all.J 
These are the substantive, self-existent Ideas or Forms that 
Plato first presented to the philosox3hical world : sometimes mth 
logical acuteness, oftener still with rich poetical and imaginative 
colouring. They constitute the main body and characteristic of 
the hypothesis of Ecalism. 

But though the main hypothesis is the same, the accessories 
and manner of presentation difi'er materially among its dif- 
ferent advocates. In these respects, indeed, Plato differs not 
only from others, but also from himself. Systematic teaching or 
exposition is not his purpose, nor docs he ever give opinions in 

* Porphyry — Introd. in Catogor. init. 

t Xenophon Momorabil. I. 4, 9-17; IV. 3, U. 

t Aristotel. Metaphys. I. 6, p. 987. b. 5 ; XIIT. 4, p. 1078, b. 15. 



PLATONIC IDEAS. 5 

his own name. We have from him an aggregate of detached 
dialogues, in many of which this same hypothesis is brought 
under discussion. But in each dialogue, the spokesmen approach it 
from a different side : while in others (distinguished by various 
critics as the Sokratic dialogues), it does not come under dis- 
cussion at all ; Plato being content to remain upon the Sokratic 
platform, and to debate the meaning of general terms without 
postulating in correlation with them an objective reality, apart 
from their respective particulars. 

At the close of the Platonic dialogue called Keatyltjs, 
Sokrates is introduced as presenting the hypothesis of self- existent, 
eternal, unchangeable Ideas (exactly in the way that Aristotle 
ascribes to Plato) as the counter-proposition to the theory of 
universal flux and change announced by Heracleitus. Particulars 
are ever changing (it is here argued) and are thus out of the reach 
of cognition ; but unless the Universal Ideas above them, such as 
the Self -beautiful, the Self -good, &c., be admitted as unchangeable 
objective realities, there can be nothing either nameable or know- 
able : cognition becomes impossible. 

In the TiMAEUS, Plato describes the construction of the 
Cosmos by a divine Architect, and the model followed by the 
latter in his work. The distinction is here again brought out, 
and announced as capital, between the permanent, unalterable 
Entia, and the transient, ever-fluctuating, Fientia, which come 
and go, but never really are, Entia are apprehended by the cogi- 
tant or intelligent soul of the Kosmos, Fientia by the sentient or 
percipient soul ; the cosmical soul as a whole, in order to suffice 
for both these tasks j is made up of diverse component elements — • 
Idem, correlating with the first of the two — Diversum, correlating 
with the second — and Idem implicated with Diversum, correspond- 
ing to both in conjunction. The Divine Architect is described 
as constructing a Cosmos, composed both of soul and body, upon 
the pattern of the grand pre-existent Idea — -Auto-zoon or the 
Self-animal : which included in itself as a genus the four distinct 
species — celestial (gods, visible and invisible), terrestrial, aerial, 
and aquatic. 

The main point that Plato here insists upon is, the eternal 
and unchangeable reality of the cogitable objects called Ideas, 
prior both in time and in logical order to the transient objects of 
sight and touch, and serving as an exemplar to which these latter 
are made to approximate imperfectly. He assumes such priority, 
without proof, in the case of the Idea of Animal ; but when he 
touches upon the four elements — Fire, Air, Water, Earth — he 
hesitates to make the same assumption, and thinks himself re- 
quired to give a reason for it. The reason that he assigns 
(announced distinctly as his own) is as follows : If intellection 
(cogitation, "Nou^), and true opinion, are two genera distinct from 
each other, there must clearly exist Forms or Ideas imperceptible 
to our senses, and apprehended only by cogitation or intellection ; 
But if, as some persons think, true opinion is noway different 



b APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

from intellection, then we must admit all the objects perceived by 
our senses as firm realities. Now, the fact is (he proceeds to say) 
that true opinion is not identical with intellection, but quite dis- 
tinct, separate, and unlike to it. Intellection is communicated by 
teaching, through true reasoning, and is unshakeable by persua- 
sion ; true opinion is communicated by persuasion and removed by 
counter-persuasion, without true reasoning. True opinion may 
belong to any man ; but intellection is the privilege only of gods 
and of a small section of mankind. Accordingly, since the two 
are distinct, the objects correlating with each of them must also be 
distinct from each other. There must exist, first, primary, eternal, 
unchangeable Forms, apprehended by intellect or cogitation, but 
imperceptible by sense ; and, secondly, resemblances of these 
bearing the same name, generated and destroyed each in some 
place, and apprehended first by sense, afterwards by opinion. 
Thirdly, there must be the place wherein such resemblances are 
generated ; a place itself imperceptible by sense, yet postulated, 
as a receptacle indispensable for them, by a dreamy and spurious 
kind of computation. 

"We see here that the proof given by Plato, in support of the 
existence of Forms as the primary realities, is essentially psycJio- 
logical : resting upon the fact that there is a distinct mental 
energy or faculty called Intellection (apart from sense and 
opinion), which must have its distinct objective correlate; and 
upon the farther fact, that Intellection is the high preroga- 
tive of the gods, shared only by a few chosen men. This last 
point of the case is more largely and emphatically brought out in 
the Ph^drus, where Sokrates delivers a highly poetical effusion 
respecting the partial inter- communion of the human soul with 
these eternal intellectual ReaMa. To contemplate them is the 
constant privilege of the gods ; to do so is also the aspiration of 
the immortal soul of man generally, in the pre-existent state, prior 
to incorporation with the human body ; though only in a few cases 
is such aspiration realized. Even those few human souls, that 
have succeeded in getting sight of the intellectual Ideas (essences 
without colour, figure, or tactile properties), lose all recollection 
of them when first entering into partnership with a human body ; 
but are enabled gradually to recall them, by combining repeated 
impressions and experience of their resemblances in the world of 
sense. The revival of these divine elements is an inspiration of 
the nature of madness — though it is a variety of madness as much 
better than uninspired human reason as other varieties are worse. 
The soul, becoming insensible to ordinary pursuits, contracts a 
passionate devotion to these Universal Ideas, and to that dialectic 
communion especially with some pregnant youthful mind, that 
brings them into clear separate contemplation, disengaged from 
the limits and confusion of sense. 

Here philosophy is represented as the special inspiration of a 
few, whose souls during the period of pre-existence have sufiiciently 
caught sight of the IJniversal Ideas or Essences; so that these 



THE COGITABLE AGAINST THE SENSIBLE. 7 

last, though overlaid and buried when the soul is first plunged 
in a body, are yet revivable afterwards under favourable circum- 
stances, through their imperfect copies in the world of sense : 
especially by the sight of personal beauty in an ingenuous and 
aspiring youth^ in which case the visible copy makes nearest 
approach to the perfection of the Universal Idea or Type. At the 
same time, Plato again presents to us the Cogitable IJniversals as 
the only objects of true cognition — the Sensible Particulars being 
objects merely of opinion. 

In the Ph^don, Sokrates advances the same doctrine, that 
the perceptions of sense are full of error and confusion, and can at 
best suggest nothing higher than opinion ; that true cognition can 
never be attained except when the Cogitant Mind disengages itself 
from the body and comes into direct contemplation of the Univer- 
sal Entia, objects eternal and always the same — The Self -beautiful. 
Self-good, Self -just, Self-great, Healthy, Strong, &c., all which 
objects are invisible, and can be apprehended only by the cogita- 
tion or intellect. It is this cogitable Universal that is alone 
real; Sensible Particulars are not real, nor lasting, nor trust- 
worthy. None but a few philosophers, however, can attain such 
pure mental energy during this life ; nor even they, fully and per- 
fectly. But they will attain it fully after death, (their souls being 
immortal), if their lives have been passed in sober philosophical 
training. And their souls enjoyed it before birth, during the 
period of pre-existence : having acquired, before junction with the 
body, the knowledge of these Universals, which are forgotten dur- 
ing childhood, but recalled in the way of reminiscence, by sensible 
perceptions that make a distant approach to them. Thus, 
according to the Phgedon and some other dialogues, all learning 
is merely reminiscence ; the mind is brought back, by the laws of 
association, to the knowledge of Universal Eealities that it had 
possessed in its state of pre-existence. Particulars of sense partici- 
pate in these Universals to a certain extent, or resemble them 
imperfectly ; and they are therefore called by the same name. 

In the Kepublic, we have a repetition and copious illustration 
of this antithesis between the world of Universals or Cogitabilia, 
which are the only unchangeable realities, and the only objects of 
loiowledge, — and the world of Setisible Particulars, which are 
transitory and confused shadows of these Universals, and are 
objects of opinion only. Pull and Eeal Ens is knowable, Non- 
Ens is altogether unknowable; what is midway between the 
two is matter of opinion, and in such midway are the particulars 
of sense.* Eespecting these last, no truth is attainable; when- 
ever you affirm a proposition respecting any of them, you may 
with equal truth affirm the contrary at the same time. Nowhere 
is the contrast between the Universals or Real Ideas (among which 
the Idea of Good is the highest, predominant over all the rest), 
and the unreal Particulars, or Percepta of sense, more forcibly in- 

* Plato Republ V. p. 477-478. 



8 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

sisted upon than in the Eepublic. Even the celestial bodies and 
their movements, being among these Percepta of sense, are ranked 
among phantoms interesting but useless to observe ; they are the 
best of all Percepta, but they fall very short of the perfection 
that the mental eye contemplates in the Ideal — in the true* 
Figures and Numbers, in the Eeal Velocity and the Real Slowness. 
In the simile commencing the seventh book of the Eepublic, Plato 
compares mankind to prisoners in a cave, chained in one particular 
attitude, so as to behold only an ever- varying multiplicity of 
shadows, projected, through the opening of the cave, upon the 
wall before them, by certain unseen Eealities behind. The 
philosopher is one among a few, who by training or inspiration, 
have been enabled to face about from this original attitude, and to 
contemplate with his mind the real unchangeable Universals, 
instead of having his eye fixed upon their particular manifesta- 
tions, at once shadowy and transient. Ey such mental revolution 
he comes round from the perceivable to the cogitable, from opinion 
to knowledge. 

The distinction between these two is farther argued in the 
elaborate dialogue called The^tetUS, where Sokrates, trying to 
explain what Knowledge or Cognition is, refutes three proposed 
explanations ; and shows, to his own satisfaction, that it is not sen- 
sible perception, that it is not true opinion, that it is not true 
opinion coupled with rational explanation. But he confesses 
himself unable to show what Knowledge or Cognition is, though 
he continues to announce it as correlating with realities Cogitable 
and Universal only.* 

In the passages above noticed, and in many others besides, we 
find Plato drawing a capital distinction between Universals eter- 
nal and unchangeable — (each of them a Unit as well as a 
Universal),! which he affirms to be the only Eeal Entia — and 
Particulars transient and variable, which are not Entia at all, but 
are always coming or going; the Universals being objects of 
cogitation and of a psychological fact called Cognition, which he 
declares to be infallible; and the Particulars being objects of 
sense, and of another psychological fact radically difterent, called 
Opinion, which he pronounces to be fallible and misleading. 
Plato holds, moreover, that H:he Particulars, though generically 
distinct and separate from the Universals, have nevertheless a 
certain communion or participation with them, by virtue of which 
they become half-existent and half-cognizable, but never attain 
to full reality or cognizability. 

This is the first statement of the theory of complete and un- 

* Plato Thesetct., p. 173, 176, 1*86. Grote's Plato, vol. II. ch. 26, 
p. 370-395. 

t Plato Philebus, p. 15, A — B, avddojv fiovd^ac^ fiiav Ikolutijv ovaav ctd 
TTjp dvTTjv, &c., Republic X., p. 596, A. The phrase of Milton— Unus et 
Universus — expresses this idea : — 

* Sed quamlibet natura sit communior, 
Tameu scorsus extat ad modum uuius/ &c. 



FIRST STATEMENT OF REALISM. 9 

qualified Eealism, wliicli came to be known in the Middle Ages 
under tlie phrase TJniversalia ante rem or extra rem, and to be 
distinguished from the two counter theories TJniversalia in re 
(Aristotelian), and Universalia post rem (Nominal! jm). Indeed, the 
Platonic theory goes even farther than the phrase Universalia ante 
rem^ which recognizes the particular as a reality, though posterior 
and derivative, for Plato attenuates it into phantom and 
shadow. The problem was now clearly set out in philosophy — 
What are the objects correlating with Universal terms, and with 
Particular terms ? What is the relation between the two ? Plato 
first gave to the world the solution called Pealism, which lasted 
so long after his time. We shall presently find Aristotle taking 
issue with him on both the affirmations included in his theory. 

But though Plato first introduced this theory into philosophy, 
he was neither blind to the objections against it, nor disposed to 
conceal them. His mind was at once poetically constructive and 
dialectically destructive ; to both these impulses the theory fur- 
nished ample scope, while the form of his compositions (separate 
dialogues, with no mention of his own name) rendered it easy to 
give expression either to one or the other. Before Aristotle 
arose to take issue with him, we shall find him taking issue with 
himself, especially in the dialogues called Sophistes and Parmenides, 
not to mention the Philebus, wherein he breaks down the unity 
even of his sovereign Idea, which in the Eepublic governs the 
Cogitable World — the Idea of Good.* 

Both in the Sophistes and in the Parmenides, the leading dis- 
putant introduced by Plato is not Sokrates, but Parmenides and 
another person (unnamed) of the Eleatic school. In both dialogues 
objections are taken against the Eealistic theory elsewhere pro- 
pounded by Plato, though the objections adduced in the one are 
quite distinct from those noticed in the other. In the Sophistes, 
the Eleatic reasoner impugns successfully the theories of two 
classes of philosophers, one the opposite of the other ; first, the 
Ma.terialists, who recognized no Entia except the Fercepta of 
Sense ; next, the Eealistic Idealists, who refused to recognize 
these last as real Entia, or as anything more than transient and 
mutable Generata or Fientia, while they confined the title of 
Entia to the Forms, cogitable, incorporeal, eternal, immutable, 
neither acting on anything, nor acted upon by anything. These 
persons are called in the Sophistes * Friends of Forms,' «,nd their 
theory is exactly what we have already cited out of so many 
other dialogues of Plato, drawing the marked line of separation 
between Entia and Fientia ; between the Immutable, which alone 
is real and cognizable, and the Mutable, neither real nor cogniz- 
able. The Eleate in the Sophistes controverts this Platonic 
theory, and maintains — that among the Universal Entia there are 
included items mutable as well as immutable ; that both are real 

* Plato Philebus, p. 65-66 ; see Grote's Plato, vol. II. eh. 30, i\ 
584-585. 



10 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

and botli cognizable ; tliat Non-Ens (instead of being set in glar- 
ing contrast with Ens, as the totally incogitable against the 
infallibly cognizable)* is one among the multiplicity of Real 
Forms, meaning only what is different from Ens, and therefore 
cognizable not less than Ens ; that Percepta and Cogitata are alike 
real, yet both only relatively real, correlating with minds per- 
cipient and cogitant. Thus, the reasoning in the Sophistes, while 
it sets aside the doctrine of Universalia ante rem, does not mark 
out any other relation between Universals and Particulars (neither 
in re nor post rem). It discusses chiefly the intercommunion or 
reciprocal exclusion of Universals with respect to each other ; and, 
upon this point, far from representing them as Objects of infal- 
lible Cognition as contrasted with Opinion, it enrolls both Opinion 
and Discourse among the Universals themselves, and declares 
both of them to be readily combinable with Non-Ens and False- 
hood. So that we have here error and fallibility recognized in 
the region of Universals, as well as in that of Particulars. 

But it is principally in the dialogue Parmenides that Plato 
discusses with dialectical acuteness the relation of Universals to 
their Particulars ; putting aside the intercommunion (affirmed in 
the Sophistes) or reciprocal exclusion between one Universal and 
another, as an hypothesis at least supremely difficult to vindi- 
cate, if at all admissible, t In the dialogue, Sokrates is in- 
troduced in the unusual character of a youthful and ardent 
aspirant in philosophy, defending the Platonic theory of Ideas, as 
we have seen it proclaimed in the Pepublic and in Timeeus. The 
veteran Parmenides appeal's as the opponent to cross-examine 
him; and not only impugns the theory by several interrogatories 
which Sokrates cannot answer, but also intimates that there 
remain behind other objections equally serious requiring answer. 
Yet at the same time he declares that unless the theory be ad- 
mitted, and unless Universalia ante rem can be sustained as existent, 
there is no trustworthy cognition attainable, nor any end to be 
served by philosophical debate. Moreover, Parmenides warns 
Sokrates that before he can acquire a mental condition competent 
to defend the theory, he must go through numerous preliminary 
dialectical exercises ; following out both the affirmative and the 
negative hypotheses in respect to a great variety of LTniversalia 
severally. To illustrate the course prescribed, Parmenides gives 
a long specimen of this dialectic in handling his own doctrine of 
Ens Unum. He takes first the hypothesis Si Unum Est — next, 
the hypothesis Si Ufium non est ; and he deduces from each, by 
ingenious subtleties, double and contradictory conclusions. These 
he sums up at the end, challenging Sokrates to solve the puzzles 
before affirming his thesis. 

Apart from these antinomies at the close of the dialogue, the 

* Plato Repubhc, V., 478-479. 

t Plato Parmenid. p. 129 E ; with Stallbaum's Prolegomena to that 
Dialogue, p. 38-42. 



Plato's objections to his own theory. 11 

cross-examination of Sokrates by Parmenides, in the middle of it, 
brings out forcibly against fcbe Realistic theory objections such as 
those urged against it by the Nominalists of the Middle Aeres. In 
the first place, we find that Plato conceived the theory itself differ- 
ently from Porphyry and the philosophers that wrote subse- 
quently to the Peripatetic criticism. Porphyry and his successors 
put the question, Whether Genera and Species had a separate 
existence, apart from the individuals composing them ? Now, the 
world of Forms (the Cogitable or Ideal world as opposed to the 
Sensible), is not here conceived by Plato as peopled in the first 
instance by Genera and Species. Its first tenants are attributes^ 
and attributes distinctly relative — Likeness, One and Many, Jus- 
tice, Beauty, Goodness, &c. Sokrates, being asked by Parmenides 
whether he admits Forms corresponding with these names, 
answers unhesitatingly in the affirmative. He is next asked 
whether he admits Forms corresponding to the names Man, Fire, 
Water, &c., and instead of replying in the affirmative, intimates 
that he does not feel sure. Lastly, the question is put whether 
there are Forms corresponding to the names of mean objects — 
mud, hair, dirt, &c. At first he answers emphatically in the 
negative, and treats the affirmative as preposterous ; there exists 
no cogitable hair, &c., but only the object of sense that we so 
denominate. Yet, on second thoughts, he is not without misgiving 
that there maybe Forms even of these; tliough the supposition 
is so repulsive to him that he shakes it off as much as he can. 
Upon this last expression of sentiment Parmenides comments, 
ascribing it to the juvenility of Sokrates, and intimating that 
when Sokrates has become more deeply imbued with philosophy, 
he will cease to set aside any of these objects as unworthy. 

Here we see that in the theory of Eealism as conceived by 
Sokrates, the Self -Existent Universals are not Genera and Species 
as such, but Attributes (not Second Substances or Essences, but 
Accidents or Attributes, e.g., Quality, Quantity, Eelation, &c., to 
use the language afterwards introduced by the Aristotelian Cate- 
gories) ; that no Genera or Species are admitted except with hesi- 
tation ; and that the mean and undignified among them are 
scarcely admissible at all. This sentiment of dignity, associated 
with the Universalia ante rem, and the emotional necessity for 
tracing back particulars to an august and respected origin — is to 
be noted as a marked and lasting feature of the EeaKstic creed ; 
and it even passed on to the Universalia in re as afterwards 
affirmed by Aristotle. Parmenides here takes exception to it 
(and so does Plato elsewhere*) as inconsistent with faithful ad- 
herence to scientific analogy. 

Parmenides then proceeds (interrogating Sokrates) first to 
state what the Realistic theory is (Universals apart from Parti- 
culars — Particulars apart from Universals, yet having some parti- 
cipation in them, and named after them), next to bring out the 

* Plato Sophist. 227 A. Politikus, p. 26^ D. 



12 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

difficulties attacliing to it. The Universal or Form (he argues) 
cannot be entire in each of its many separate particulars ; nor yet 
is it divisible, so that a part can be in one particular, and a part 
in another. For take the Forms Great, Equal, Small ; Equal 
magnitudes are equal because they partake in the Form of equa- 
lity. But how can a part of the Form Equality, less than the 
whole Form, cause the magnitudes to be equal ? How can the 
Form Smallness have any parts less than itself, or how can it be 
greater than anything ? 

The Form cannot be divided, nor can it co-exist undivided in 
each separate particular ; accordingly, particulars can have no par- 
ticipation in it at all. 

Again, you assume a Form of Greatness, because you see many 
particular objects, each of which appears to you great; this being 
the point of resemblance between them. But if you compare the 
Form of Greatness with any or all of the particular great objects, 
you will perceive a resemblance between them ; this will require 
you to assumS a higher Form, and so on upward, without limit. 
Sokrates, thus embarrassed, starts the hypothesis that perhaps 
each of these Forms may be a cogitation, and nothing more, 
existing only within the mind. How ? rejoins Parmenides. Can 
there be a cogitation of nothing at all ? Must not each cogitation 
have a real cogitatum correlating with it — in this case, the one 
Form that is identical throughout many particulars ? If you say 
that particulars partake in the Form, and that each Form is 
nothing but a cogitation, does not this imply that each particular 
is itself cogitant ? 

Again, Sokrates urges that the Forms are constant, unalter- 
able, stationary in nature ; that particulars resemble them, and 
participate in them only so far as to resemble them. But (rejoins 
Parmenides) if particulars resemble the Form, the Form must 
resemble them. ; accordingly, you must admit another and higher 
Form, as the point of resemblance between the Form and its par- 
ticulars ; and so on, upwards. 

And farther (continues Parmenides), even admitting these Uni- 
versal Forms as self- existent, how can we know anything about 
them ? Forms can correlate only with Forms, Particulars only 
with Particulars. Thus, if I, an individual man, am master, I 
correlate with another individual man, who is my servant, and he 
on his side with me. But the Form of mastership, the universal 
self- existent master, must correlate with the Form of servantship, 
the universal servant. The correlation does not subsist between 
members of the two different worlds, but between different mem- 
bers of the same world respectively. Thus the Form of Cognition 
correlates with the Form of Truth ; and the Form of each variety 
of Cognition, with the Form of the corresponding variety of 
Truth. But Ave, as individual subjects, do not possess in ourselves 
the Form of Cognition; our Cognition is our own, correlating 
with such truth as belongs to it and to ourselves. Our Cognition 
cannot reach to^ the Form of Truth, nor therefore to any other 



AEISTOTLE. 13 

Form; we can know nothing of the Self-good, Self -beautiful, 
Self -just, &c., even supposing such Forms to exist. 

These acute and subtle arguments are nowhere answered by- 
Plato. They remain as unsolved difficulties, embarrassing the 
Bealistic theory ; they are reinforced by farther difficulties no less 
grave, included in the dialectic Antinomies of Parmenides at the 
close of the dialogue, and by an unknown number of others indi- 
cated as producible, though not actually produced. Yet still 
Plato, with full consciousness of these difficulties, asserts unequivo- 
cally, that unless the Eealistic theory can be sustained, philoso- 
phical research is fruitless, and truth cannot be reached. We see 
thus that the author of the theory has also left on record some of 
the most forcible arguments against it. It appears from Aristotle 
(though we do not learn the fact from the Platonic dialogues), 
that Plato, in his later years, symbolized the Ideas or Forms under 
the denomination of Ideal Numbers, generated by implication of 
The One with what he called The Great and Little, or the Indeter- 
minate Dyad. This last, however, is not the programme wherein 
the Eealistic theory stands opposed to Nominalism. 

But the dialogue Parmenides, though full of acuteness on the 
negative side, not only furnishes no counter-theory, but asserts 
continued allegiance to the Eealistic theory, which passed as 
Plato's doctrine to his successors. To impugn, forcibly and even 
unanswerably, a theory at once so sweeping and so little fortified 
by positive reasons, was what many dialecticians of the age could 
do. But to do this, and at the same time to construct a counter- 
theory, was a task requiring higher powers of mind. One, how- 
ever, of Plato's disciples and successors was fcand adequate to the 
task — Aristotle. 

- The Eealistic Ontology of Plato is founded (as Aristotle him- 
self remarks) upon mistrust and contempt of perception of sense, as 
bearing entirely on the flux of particulars, which never stand still 
so as to become objects of knowledge. All reality, and all cog- 
noscibility, were supposed to reside in the separate world of 
Cogitable Universals f extra rem or ante rem J, of which, in some 
confused manner, particulars were supposed to partake. The 
Universal, apart from its particulars, was clearly and fully 
knowable, furnishing propositions constantly and infallibly true : 
the Universal, as manifested in its particulars, was never fully 
knowable, nor could ever become the subject of propositions, 
except such as were sometimes true and sometimes false. 

Against this separation of the Universal from its Particulars, 
Aristotle entered a strong protest : as well as against the sub- 
sidiary hypothesis of a participation of the latter in the former : 
which participation, when the two had been declared separate, 
appeared to him not only untenable and uncertified, but unin- 
telligible. His arguments are interesting, as being among the 
earliest objections known to us against Eealism. 

1. Eealism is a useless multiplication of existences, serving 
no purpose. Wherever a number of particulars — be they sub- 



14 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

stances eternal or perishable — be they substances, qualities, or 
relations — bear the same name, and thus have a Universal in re 
predicable of them in common— in every such case Plato assumes 
a Universal extra rem, or a separate self- existent Form ; -which 
explains nothing, and merely doubles the total to be summed up.* 

2. Plato's arguments in support of Eealism are either incon- 
clusive, or prove too much. Wherever there is cognition (he 
argues), there must exist an eternal and unchangeable object of 
cognition, apart from particulars, which are changeable and 
perishable. No, replies Aristotle : cognition does not require the 
Universalia extra rem : for the Universalia in re, the constant pre- 
dicate of all the particulars, is sufficient as an object of cognition. 
Moreover, if the argument were admitted, it would prove that 
there existed separate Forms or Universals of mere negations — 
for many of the constant predicates are altogether negative. 
Again, if Self-Existent Universals are to be assumed corre- 
sponding to all our cogitations, we must assume Universals of 
extinct particulars, and even of fictitious particulars, such as Hip- 
pocentaurs or Chimeras : for of these, too, we have phantasms or 
concepts in our minds. •j' 

3. The most subtle disputants on this matter include Belata, 
among the Universals Ideas or Forms. This is absurd, because 
these do not constitute any Genus by themselves. These dis- 
putants have also urged against the Realistic theory that powerful 
and unsolved objection, entitled The Third Man.X 

4. The supporters of these Self-Existent Universals trace them 
to two pri7icipia — The One, and the Indeterminate Dyad ; which 
they affirm to be prior in existence even to the Universals them- 
selves. But this can never be granted : for in the first place, the 
Idea of Number must be logically prior to the Idea of the Dyad ; 
but the Idea of Number is relative, and the Eelative can never be 
prior to the Absolute or Self-Existent. 

5. If we grant that wherever there is one constant predicate 
belonging to many particulars, or wherever there is stable and 
trustworthy cognition, in all such cases a Self-Existent Universal 
correlate extra rem is to be assumed, we shall find that this 
applies not merely to Substances or Essences, but also to the 
other Categories — Quality, Quantity, Pelation, &c. But h(jreby 
we exclude the possibility of participation in them by Particulars : 

* Aristot. Metaph. A. 990, a. 34; M. 1079, a. 2. Here we have the 
first appearance of the argument that William of Gckham, the 
Kominalist, put in the foreground of his case against Eealism — *Entia 
non sunt multiphcanda praoter necessitatem,' &c. 

-t- Aristot. Metaphys. A. 990, b. 14; Scholia, p. 565, b. 10, Brandit. 

X Aristot. Metaph. A. 990, b. 15, ol aKpipscTrepot tujv \6yu)v. Both the 
points here noticed appear in the Parmenides ot Blato, 

The objection called The Third Man, is expressed by saying, that if 
tiiere be a Form ot man, resembling individual men, you must farther 
postulate some higher Form, marking the point of resemblance between 
the two : and so on higher, without end. 



AKISTOTLE'S criticism of PLATO. 15 

since from such participation the Particular derives its Substance 
or Essence alone, not its accidental predicates. Thus the Self- 
Existent Universal Dyad is eternal : but a particular pair, which 
derives its essential property of doubleness from partaking in this 
Universal Dyad, does not at the same time partake of eternity, 
unless by accident. Accordingly, there are no Universal Ideas, 
except of Substances or Essences : the common name, when 
applied to the world of sense and to that of cogitation, signifies 
the sanie thing — substance or essence. It is unmeaning to talk 
of anything else as signified — any other predicate com_mon to 
many. Well then, if the Form of the Universals, and the Form 
of those particulars that participate in the Universals, be the 
same, we shall have something common to both the one and the 
other, so that the objection called The Third Man will become 
applicable, and a higher Form must be postulated. But if the 
Form of the Universals and the Form of the participating parti- 
culars, be not identical, then the same name, as signifying both, 
will be used equivocally ; just as if you applied the same denomi- 
nation Man to Kallias and to a piece of wood, without any 
common property to warrant it. 

6. But the greatest difficulty of all is to understand how these 
Cogitable Universals, not being causes of any change or move- 
ment, contribute in any way to the objects of sense, either to the 
eternal or to the perishable : or how they assist us towards the 
knowledge thereof, being not in them, and therefore not their 
substance or essence : or how they stand in any real relation to 
their participants, being not immanent therein. Particulars cer- 
tainly do not proceed from these Universals, in any intelligible 
sense. To say that the Universals are archetypes, and that par- 
ticulars partake in them, is unmeaning, and mere poetic metaphor. 
For where is the working force to mould them in conformity with 
the Universals ? Any one thing may he like, or may become like, to 
any other particular thing, by accident ; or without any regular 
antecedent cause to produce such assimilation. The same particular 
substance, moreover, will have not one Universal archetype only, 
but several. Thus, the same individual man will have not only the 
Self-animal and the Self-biped, but also the Self-man, as Archetype. 
Then again, there will be Universal Archetypes, not merely for par- 
ticular sensible objects, but also for Universals themselves : thus the 
Genus will be an archetype for its various species : so that the same 
which is now archetype, will, under other circumstances, be copy. 

7. Furthermore, it seems impossible that what is Substance or 
Essence can be separate from that whereof it is the Substance or 
Essence. How then can the Universals, if they be the Essences 
of Sensible things, have any existence apart from those Sensible 
things ? Plato tells us in the Phaedon, that the Forms or Uni- 
versals are the causes Avhy particulars both exist at all, and come 
into such or such modes of existence. But even if we assume 
Universals as existing, still the Particulars participant therein 
will not come into being, unless there be some efficient cause to 



16 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

produce movement ; moreover, many otlier things come into 
being, though there be no Universals correlating therewith, e.g., 
a house, or a ring. The same causes that were sufficient to bring 
these last into being, will be sufficient to bring all particulars into 
being, without assuming any Universals extra rem at all. 

8. Again, if the Universals or Forms are Numbers, how can 
they ever be causes ? Even if we suppose Particulars to be Num- 
bers also, how can one set of Numbers be causes to the others ? 
There can be no such causal influence, even if one set be eternal, 
and the other perishable.* 

Out of the many objections raised by Aristotle against Plato, 
we have selected such as bore principally upon the theory of 
Eealism : that is, upon the theory of Universalia ante rem or extra 
rem — self -existent, archetypal, cogitable substances, in which Par- 
ticulars faintly participated. The objections are not superior in 
acuteness, and they are decidedly inferior, in clearness of enunci- 
ation, to those that Plato himself produces in the Parmenides. 
Moreover, several of them are founded upon Aristotle's point of 
view, and would have failed to convince Plato. The great merit of 
Aristotle is, that he went beyond the negative of the Parmenides, 
asserted this new point of view of his own, and formulated it into 
a counter-theory. He rejected altogether the separate and ex- 
clusive reality which Plato had claimed for his Absolutes of the 
Cogitable world, as well as the derivative and unreal semblance 
that alone Plato accorded to the sensible world. Without 
denying the distinction of the two, as conceivable and nameable, 
he maintained that truth and cognition required that they should 
be looked at in implication with each other. And he went even 
a step farther, in antithesis to Plato, by reversing the order of the 
two. Instead of considering the Cogitable Universals alone as real 
and complete in themselves, and the Sensible Particulars as degene- 
rate and confused semblances of them, he placed complete reality 
in the sensible particulars alone, f and treated the cogitable uni- 
versals as contributory appendages thereto ; some being essential, 

* Aristot. Metaph., A. 991, b, 13. Several other objections are made 
by Aristotle against that variety of the Platonic theory whereby the 
Ideas were commuted into Ideal numbers. These objections do not be- 
long to the controversy of Realism against Nominalism. 

4 Aristotle takes pains to vindicate against both Plato and the Hera- 
cleiteans the dignity of the Sensible World. They that depreciate sen- 
sible objects as perpetually changing, unstable, and unknowable, make 
the mistake (he observes) of confining their attention to the sublunary 
interior of the Cosmos, where, indeed, generation and destruction largely 
prevail. But this is only a small portion of the entire Cosmos. In the 
largest portion — the visible, celestial, superlunary regions — there is no 
2:eneration or destruction at all, nothing but permanence and uniforniit}'. 
In appreciating the sensible world (Aristotle says), philosophers ought to 
pardon the shortcomings of the smaller portion on account of the excel- 
lencies of the larger; and not condemn both together on account of the 
smaller— (IMctaphys., F. 1010, a. 32). 



IMPROVED ONTOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE, 17 

otliers non-essential, but all of them relative, and none of them 
independent integers. His philosophy was a complete revolution 
as compared with Parmenides and Plato ; a revolution, too, the 
more calculated to last, because he embodied it in an elaborate and 
original theory of Logic, Metaphysics, and Ontology. He was 
the first philosopher that, besides recognizing the equivocal cha- 
racter of those general terms whereon speculative debate chiefly 
turns, endeavoured methodically to set out and compare the dif- 
ferent meanings of each term, and their relations to each other. 

However much the Ontology of Aristotle may fail to satisfy 
modern exigencies, still, as compared with the Platonic Eealism, 
it was a considerable improvement. Instead of adopting Ens 
as a self-explaining term, contrasted with the Generated and 
Perishable (the doctrine of Plato in the Republic, Phaedon, and 
Timseus), he discriminates several distinct meanings of Ens ; a 
discrimination not always usefully pursued, but tending in the 
main towards a better theory. The distinction between Ens 
potential, and Ens actual, does not belong directly to the question 
between Eealism and Nominalism, yet it is a portion of that 
philosophical revolution wrought by Aristotle against Plato — 
displacement of the seat of reality, and transfer of it from the 
Cogitable Universal to the Sensible Particular, The direct enun- 
ciation of this change is contained in his distinction of Ens into 
Fundamental and Concomitant {avfiiSsfSriicoQ ^ and his still greater 
refinement on the same principle by enumerating the ten varieties 
of Ens called Categories or Predicaments. * He will not allow Ens 
(nor Unum) to be a Genus, partible into Species ; he recognizes it 
only as a word of many analogous meanings, one of them princi- 
pal and fundamental, the rest derivative and subordinate thereto, 
each in its own manner. Aristotle thus establishes a graduated 
scale of Entia, each having its own value and position, and its 
own mode of connexion with the common centre. That common 
centre, Aristotle declared to be of necessity some individual object 
— Hoc Aliquid, That Man, This Horse, &c. This was the common 
Subject, to which all the other Entia belonged as predicates, and 
without which none of them had any reality. We here fall uito 
the language of Logic, the first theory of which we ov/e to 
Aristotle. His ontological classification was adapted to that 
theory. 

As we are here concerned only with the different ways of con- 
ceiving the relation between the Particular and the Universal, we 
are not called on to criticise the well known decuple enumeration 
of Categories or Predicaments given by Aristotle, both in his 
Treatise called by that name and elsewhere. For our purpose it 

* In enumerating the ten Categories, Aristotle takes his departure 
from the proposition — Homo currit — Homo vincit. He assumes a particu- 
lar individual as [Subject: and he distributes, under ten general heads, all 
the information that can be asked or given about that Subject — all tho 
predicates that can be affirmed or denied thereof. 
21 



18 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

is enough to point out that the particular sensible Hoc Aliquid is 
declared to be the ultimate subject, to which all Universals attach, 
as determinants or accompaniments ; and that if this condition be 
wanting, the unattached Universal cannot rank among complete 
Entia. The Subject or First Substance , which can never become 
a predicate, is established as the indispensable ultimate subject for 
all predicates ; if that disappears, all predicates disappear along 
with it. The Particular thus becomes the keystone of the arch 
whereon all Universals rest. Aristotle is indeed careful to 
point out a gradation in these predicates ; some are essential to 
the subject, and thus approach so near to the First Substance that 
he calls them Second Substances ; others, and the most in number, 
are not thus essential; these last are Concomitants or Accidents, 
and some of them fall so much short of complete Entity that he 

These ten KaTrjyopiai — yevrj tSjv Karriyopiiov, sometimes simply to, ytvri 
— oxrilicLTa tCjv KarrjyopiCJv— I^rcedicamenta in Latin — are as follows; — 

1. Ovaia — Substantia — Substance. 

2. TLoabv — Quantum— Quantity. 

3. Ilotoj/ — Quale — Quality. 

4. npog n — Ad aliquid — Belation, 

5. Iloi) — Ubi — Location. 

6. l\6Te — Quando — Period of Time. 

7. Ka(T0at — Jacere — Attitude, Posture. 

8. ''Exfix^ — Habere — Equipment, Appurtenances, Property. 

9. Uoiuv — Facere—AQXji\Q occupation. 
10. ndo-xeti^ — Fati — Passive occupation. 

\. The first Category, Substance, is distributed into Prima and 
Secunda. Prima, which is Substance par excellence, can only serve as a 
Subject in propositions, and can never be a Predicate. It is indispens- 
able as a substratum for predicates ; though alone and without some of 
them, it is a mere unmeaning term. Substantia Secunda describes the 
Species or Genus that includes the First. Respecting an unknown 
Subject — Kallias — you ask. What is Kallias ? Answer is made by 
declaring the Second Substance, the Species he belongs to- -Kallias is 
a man. 

2. Quantum — How large is he ? To this question answer is made 
under the same Category — He is six feet high, as thin as Kinesias, &c. 

3. Quale — 'What manner of man is he ? Answer the third Category 
— He is fair, flat-nosed, muscular, &c. 

4. Helata — What are the relations that he stands in ? He is father, 
master, director, &c. 

5. Ubi — Where is he ? In his house, in the market-place, &c. 

6. Quando — Of what point of time do you speak? Yesterday, last 
jrear, now, &c. 

7. Jacere — In what attitude or posture is he ? Ho is lying down, 
standing upright, kneeling, &c. 

8. Habere — What has ho in the way of clothing, equipment, arms, 
property ? Ho has boots, sword and shield, an axe, a house, &c. 

9. Facere — In what is he actively occupied ? He is speaking, writing, 
fencing, cutting wood, &c. 

10. Fati — In what is he passively occupied? He is being beaten, ro? 
proved, rubbed, having his hair cut, &c. 



THE CATEGOKIES. 19 

describes them as near to Non-Entia.* But all of them, essential 
or unessential, are alike constituents or appendages of the First 
Substance or Particular Subject, and have no reality in any other 
character. 

We thus have the counter-theory of Aristotle against the 
Platonic Eealism. Instead of separate Universal substances, con- 
taining in themselves full reality, and forfeiting much of that 
reality when they faded down into the shadowy copies called Par- 
ticulars, he inverts the Platonic order, announces full reality to be 
the privilege of the Particular Sensible, and confines the function 
of the Universal to that of a Predicate, in or along with the Par- 
ticular. There is no doctrine that he protests against more fre- 
quently, than the ascribing of separate reality to the Universal. 
The tendency to do this, he signalizes as a natural but unfortunate 

Such is the list of Categories, or decuple classification of predicates, 
drawn up by Aristotle, seemingly from the comparison of many different 
propositions. He himself says, that there are various predicates that 
might be referred to more than one of the several heads ; and he does 
not consider this as an objection to the classification. The fourth class — 
Melata — ought to be considered as including them all ; the first Category is 
the common and indispensable Correlate to all the others. Aristotle's con- 
ception of relation is too narrow, and tied down by grammatical conjunc- 
tions of words. Yet it must be said, that the objections to his classification 
on this ground, are applicable also to the improved classifications of modern 
times, which dismiss the six last heads, and retain only the four first — 
Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation. Of these four, the three first 
properly rank under the more general head of Relata. 

Among all the ten heads of the Aristotelian scheme, the two that 
have been usually considered as most incongruous, and least entitled to 
their places, are, No. 7 and 8 — Jcicere and Habere. They are doubtless 
peculiarities ; and they may fairly be considered as revealing the first pro- 
jection of the scheme in Aristotle's mind. He began by conceiving an 
individual man as the Subject, and he tried to classify the various pre- 
dicates applicable in reply to questions respecting the same. Now, in 
this point of view, the seventh and eighth Categories will be found im- 
portant ; referring to facts constantly varying, and often desirable to 
know ; moreover not fit to rank under any of the other general heads, 
except under Relata, which comprises them as well as all the rest. But 
Aristotle afterwards proceeded to stretch the application of the scheme 
so as to comprehend philosophy generally, and other subjects of Predica- 
tion besides the individual man. Here undoubtedly the seventh and 
eighth heads appear narrow and trivial. Aristotle probabl}' would never 
have introduced them, had such enlarged purpose been present to his 
mind from the beginning. Probably, too, he was not insensible to the 
perfection of the number Ten. 

* Aristot. Metaph., E. 1026, b. 21. (paiverai yap to avixjSejSrjKog lyyvg 

TL TOV liTj OVTOQ. 

There cannot be a stronger illustration of the difference between the 
Platonic and the Aristotelian point or view, than the fact that Plato 
applies the same designation to all particular objects of sense — that 
they are only mid-way between Entia and Non-Entia. (Republic, v. 
478-479.) 



20 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

illusion, lessening tlie beneficial efficacy of universal demonstrative 
reasoning.* And he declares it to be a corollary, from this view 
of the Particular as indispensable subject, along with the Univer- 
sal as its predicate : — That the first principles of demonstration 
in all the separate theoretical sciences, must be obtained by in- 
duction from particulars : first by impressions of sense preserved 
in the memory ; then by multiplied remembrances enlarged into 
one experience ; lastly, by many experiences generalized into one 
principle by the Nous.f 

While Aristotle thus declares Induction to be the source from 
whence demonstration in these separate sciences draws its first 
principles, we must at the same time acknowledge that his manner 
of treating science is not always conformable to this declaration, 
and that he often seems to forget Induction altogether. This is 
the case not only in his First Philosophy, or Metaphysics, but also 
in his Physics. He there professes to trace out what he calls 
beginningsf causes, elements, &c., and he analyzes most of the 
highest generalities. Yet still these analytical enquiries (whatever 
be their value) are usually, if not always, kept in subordination to 
the counter-theory that he had set up against the Platonic 
Bealism. Complete reality resides (he constantly repeats) only in 
the particular sensible substances and sensible facts or movements 
that compose the aggregate Cosmos; which is not generated, 
but eternal, both as to substance and as to movement. If these 
sensible substances disappear, nothing remains. The beginnings 
and causes exist only relatively to these particulars. Form, 
Matter, Privation, are not real Beings, antecedent to the Cosmos, 
and pre-existent generators of the substances constituting the 
Cosmos ; they are logical fragments or factors, obtained by mental 
analysis and comparison, assisting to methodize our philosophical 
point of view or conception of those substances ; but incapable of 
being understood, and having no value of their own apart from 
the substances. Some such logical analysis (that of Aristotle or 
some other) is an indispensable condition even of the most strictly 
inductive philosophy. 

There are some portions of the writings of Aristotle (especially 
the third book De Animd and the twelfth book of the Metaphysica) 
where he apjjears to lose sight of the limit here indicated ; but 
with few exceptions, we find him constantly remembering, and 
often repeating, the great truth formulated in his Categories — that 
full or substantive reality resides only in the Hoc Aliquid, with its 
predicates implicated with it — and that even the highest of these 
predicates (Second Substances) have no reality apart from some 
one of their particulars. We must recollect that though Aristotle 

* Aristot. Analyt. Poster., I., p. 85, a. 31, b. 19. 

t See the concluding chapter of the Analytica Postericra. 

A similar doctrine is stated by Plato in the Phaedon (p. 9G B), as one 
among the intellectual phases that Sokrates had passed through in the 
course of his life, without continuing in them. 



^ REALISM CONTESTED UNDER THE FIRST CATEGORY. 21 

denies to tlie predicates a separate reality, lie recognizes in tliem 
an adjective reality, as accompaniments and determinants : lie con- 
templates all the ten Categories as distinct varieties of existence.* 
This is sufficient as a basis for abstraction, whereby we can name 
them and reason upon them as distinct objects of thought or 
points of view, although none of them come into reality except as 
implicated with a sensible particular. Of such reasoning Aristotle's 
First Philosophy chiefly consists ; and he introduces peculiar 
phrases to describe this distinction of reason, between two differ- 
ent points of view, where the real object spoken of is one 
and the same. The frequency of the occasions taken to point 
out that distinction, mark his anxiety to keep the First Philo- 
sophy in harmony with the theory of reality announced in his 
Categories. 

The Categories of Aristotle appear to have become more widely 
known than any other part of his philosophy. They were much dis- 
cussed by the sects coming after him ; and even when not adopted, 
were present to speculative minds as a scheme to be amended, f 
Most of the arguments turned upon the nine later Categories ; 
it was debated whether these were properly enumerated and 
discriminated, and whether the enumeration as a whole was 
exhaustive. 

With these details, however, the question between Eealism and. 
its counter-theory (whether Conceptualism or Nominalism) is not 
materially concerned. The standard against Eealism was raised by 
Aristotle in the First Category, when he proclaimed the Hoc Aliquid 
to be the only complete Ens, and the Universal to exist only along 
with it as a predicate, being nothing in itself apart ; and when he 
enumerated Quality as one among the predicates, and nothing be- 
yond. In the Platonic Eealism (Phsedon, Timseus, Parmenides) 
what Aristotle called Quality was the highest and most incon- 
testable among all Substances — the Good, the Beautiful, the 
Just, (fee. ; what Aristotle called Second Substance was also Sub- 
stance in the Platonic Eealism, though not so incontestably ; 
but what Aristotle called First Substance was in the Platonic 
Eealism no Substance at all, but only one among a multi- 
tude of confused and transient shadows. It is in the First and 
Third Categories that the capital antithesis of Aristotle against 
the Platonic Eealism is contained. As far as that antithesis is 
concerned, it rdatters little whether the aggregate of predicates 
be subdivided under nine general heads (Categories) or under 
three. 

In the century succeeding Aristotle, the Stoic philosophers 
altered his Categories, and drew up a new list of their own, con- • 
taining only four distinct heads instead of ten. We have no 
record or explanation of the Stoic Categories from any of their 

* Aristot. Metaphys., A. 1017, a. 24. oaax^Q y«p Xeyerai (ra axruiara 
rijt,' KarriyopiaQ) roaavTaxibq to tlvai (rrjfJLaipei. 

f This is the just remark of Trendelenburg — Kategorienlehre— p. 217. 



22 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

authors ; so that we are compelled to accept the list on secondary 
authority, from the comments of critics, mostly opponents. But, 
as far as we can make out, they retained in their First Category 
the capital feature of Aristotle's First Category ; the primacy of 
the First Substance or Hoc Aliquid, and its exclusive privilege of 
imparting reality to all the other Categories. Indeed, the Stoics 
seem not only to have retained this characteristic, but to have 
exaggerated it. They did not recognize so close an approach of 
the Universal to the Particular, as is implied by giving to it a 
second place in the same Category, and calling it Second Sub- 
stance. The First Category of the Stoics (Something or Subject) 
included only particular substances ; all Universals were by them 
raiiked in the other Categories, being regarded as negations of 
substances, and designated by the term Non- Somethings — Non~ 
Substances,* 

The Neo-Platonist Plotinus, in the third century after the 
Christian era, agreed with the Stoics (though looking from the 
opposite point of view) in disapproving Aristotle's arrangement of 
Second Substance in the same Category with First Substance. f 
He criticises at some length both the AristoteHan list of Cate- 
gories, and the Stoic list ; but he falls back into the Platonic and 
even the Parmenidean point of view. His capital distinction is 
between Cogitables and Sensibles. The Cogitabilia are in his 
view the most real ; {i.e. the Aristotelian Second Substance is 
more real than the First;) among them the highest, Unum or 
Bonum, is the grand lountain and sovereign of all the rest. 
Plotinus thus departed altogether from the Aristotelian Cate- 
gories, and revived the Platonic or Parmenidean Eealism ; yet 
not without some Aristotelian modifications. But it is remarkable 
that in this departure his devoted friend and scholar Porphyry 
did not follow him. Porphyry not only composed an Introduc- 
tion to the Categories of Aristotle, but also vindicated them at 
great length, in a separate commentary, against the censures of 
Plotinus : Dexippus, Jamblichus, and Simplicius, followed in the 
same track. J Still, though Porphyry stood forward both as 
admirer and champion of the Aristotelian Categories, he did 
not consider that the question raised by the First Category 
of Aristotle against the Platonic Healism was finally decided. 
This is sufficiently proved by the three problems cited above 
out of the Introduction of Porphyry; where he proclaims it 
to be a deep and difficult inquiry, whether Genera and Species 
had not a real substantive existence apart from the individuals 
composing them. Aristotle, both in the Categories and in many 
other places, had declared his opinion distinctly in the negative, 
against Plato : but Porphyry had not made up his mind between 

* Prantl — Gesch. der Logik. Vol. I. sect. vi. p. 420. ovriva to, 
KOiva Trap' avTolq Xsysraiy Sec. 
t Plotinus. Ennead. VI. 1, 2. 
i Simplicius. Schol. in Aristotel. Cutcg. — p. 40 a-b. Brandia. 



SCOTUS EKTGENA. 23 

tlie two, thougli he insists, in language very Aristotelian, on the 
distinction between First and Second Substance.* 

Through the translations and manuals of Boethius and others, 
the Categories of Aristotle were transmitted to the Latin Church- 
men, and continued to be read even through the darkest ages, 
when the Analytica and the Topica were unknown or neglected. 
The Aristotelian discrimination between First and Second Sub- 
stance was thus always kept in sight, and Boethius treated it 
much in the same manner as Porphyry had done before him.f 
Alcuin, Rhabanus Maurus, and Eric of Auxerre,f in the eighth 
and ninth centuries, repeated what they found in Boethius, and 
upheld the Aristotelian tradition unimpaired. But ScOTUS 
Erigena (d. 880 A.d.) took an entirely opposite view, and 
reverted to the Platonic traditions, though with a large admix- 
ture of Aristotelian ideas. He was a Christian Platonist, blend- 
ing the transcendentalism of Plato and Plotinus with theological 
dogmatic influences (derived from the Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita 
and others) and verging somewhat even towards Pantheism. 
Scotus Erigena revived the doctrine of Cogitable Universalia extra 
rem and ante rem. He declared express opposition to the arrange- 
ment of the First Aristotelian Category, whereby the individual 
was put first, in the character of subject; the Universal second, 
in the character only of predicate ; complete reality belonging to 
the two in conjunction. Scotus maintained that the Cogitable or 
Incorporeal Universal was the first, the true and complete real ; 
from whence the sensible individuals were secondary, incomplete, 
multiple, derivatives.il But though he thus adopts and enforces 
the Platonic theory of Universalia ante rem and extra rem^ he does 
not think himself obliged to deny that Universalia may be in re 
al&o. 

The contradiction of the Aristotelian traditions, so far as con- 
cerns the First Category, thus proclaimed by Scotus Erigena, 
appears to have provoked considerable opposition among his im- 
mediate successors. N'evertheless, he also obtained partizans. 
Remigius of Auxerre and others not only defended the Platonic 
Realism, but carried it as far as Plato himself had done ; affirming 
that not only Universal Substances, but also Universal Accidents, 
had a real separate existence, apart from and anterior to indivi- 
duals. § The controversy for and against the Platonic Realism 
was thus distinctly launched in the schools of the middle ages. 

* Prantl— Geschichte der Logik. Vol. I., sect. 11, p. 634, n. 69. 
Upon this account, Prantl finds Porphyry guilty of * empiricism in its 
extreme crudeness' — * jene aiisserste Rohheit des Empirismus.' 

t Prantl— Geschichte der Logik. Vol. I., sect. 12, p. 685 ; Vol. II., 
sect. 1, p. 4-7. Trendelenburg— Kategorienlehre, p. 245. 

X Ueberweof — Geschichte der Philosophic der patristischen und 
scholastischen Zeit, sect. 21, p. 115, ed. 2nd. 

I! Prantl— Gesch. der Logik. Vol. IF., ch. 13, p. 59-35. 

"I Ueherweg— Geschicht der Philos., sect. 21, p. 113. Prantl — Gesch* 
der Logik, Vol. IL, ch. 13, 44, 45-47. 



24 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

It was upheld both as a philosophical revival, and as theological!]? 
orthodox, entitled to supersede the traditional counter-theory of 
Aristotle, 

It has been stated above, that it was through Porphyry's 
Isagocje (in the translation of Boethius) that the schoolmen became 
acquainted with the ancient dispute as to the nature of Universals. 
Of Plato's doctrines, except in a translation of part of the Timseus, 
they had for a long time only second-hand knowledge, chiefly 
through St. Augustin ; of Aristotle, they knew down to the middle 
of the twelfth century, only the Categories and the De Inter jive- 
tatione in translation, and not, until the beginning of the thirteenth, 
others besides the logical works. Down to about this time, logic 
or dialectic being the whole of philosophy, the question as to 
Universals almost excluded every other; and, even later, when 
the field of philosophy became much wider, it never lost the first 
place as long as scholasticism remained dominant. 

Eather more than two centuries after the death of Scotus 
Erigena (about the end of the eleventh), the question was eagerly 
disputed, in its bearings upon the theological dogma of the 
Trinity, between EOSCELLIN, a canon of Compiegne, and Anselm,. 
Archbishop of Canterbury. Anselm maintained that all individual 
men were in specie homo units, and formed a real unity; so too, 
although every person in the Godhead was perfect God, they were 
but one God. To this realistic doctrine, Eoscellin (of whom very 
little is kno^\ai), founding upon some of his immediate precursors, 
opposed a theory different from the Aristotelian. Maintaining with 
Aristotle, and even more strongly than Aristotle, that the indi- 
vidual particulars were the only real entities, he declared that, in 
genera and species, the individuals were held together only sub- 
jectively by means of a general name, bestowed upon them for 
their points of similarity. The Universals were neither ante rem 
(with Plato), nor in re (with Aristotle), but _290s^ renn ; and in 
themselves were nothing at all beyond voces or nomina. Eoscellin 
ap]pears to have carried out the theory consistently, and not 
merely with reference to the special theological question. So far 
as that was concerned, he was not afraid to pronounce that the 
three persons were three individual Gods; and thereupon, his 
theology being condemned by an ecclesiastical council, the theory 
became suspect, and so remained until the late period of scholas- 
ticism. Its supporters were called by the name vocales or nomi- 
naJes, Nominalists ; and it was at the same period of excited 
feeling that the name realis, Eealist, was first used to designate 
the upholders of the ancient doctrine, as held either in the 
Platonic or the Aristotelian form. 

To what lengths the discussion of the question was carried in 
the century that elapsed from the time of Anselm and Eoscellin 
till the beginning of the second period of scholasticism, may be 
seen in a list drawn up by Prantl (Gesch. d. Log. II., pp. 118-21) 
of not less than thirteen distinct opinions, or shades of opinion, 
held by different schoolmen. Of these, the most distinguished 



AQUINAS. — DUNS SCOTUS. — OCKHAM. 26 

was Abaelakd (1079-1142), who took up a position between tlie 
extremes of Eealism and Nominalism. On the one hand, he 
denied the independent existence of Universals, and inclined 
rather to the Aristotelian view of their immanence in rebus ; on 
the other, he inveighed against the nominalism of Eoscellin, and 
pronounced that the Universals were not mere voces^ but sermones 
or predications. Yet it is a mistake to describe him as a Concep- 
tuaiisf, the name conferred upon such as, agreeing with the 
Nominalists in regard to the purely subjective character f^post 
remj of the Universals, differed from these in ascribing to the 
mind the power of fashioning a Concept or notion correspondent 
to the general name. 

In the 13th century, when Scholasticism reached its highest 
development, the supremacy of Aristotle was firmly established. 
We find accordingly in Thomas Aquinas (1226-74) a supporter of 
the Aristotelian doctrine of the Universals as immanent in re; 
but, at the same time, he declared that the intellect, by abstract- 
ing the essential attributes (quiddities) of things from their acci- 
dental attributes, forms Universals post rem; and, although he 
utterly rejected the Platonic assumption of ideas as real — the only 
truly real — entia, he yet maintained that the ideas or thoughts of 
things in the Divine mind, antecedent to creation, were Universalia 
ante rem. 

His great rival in the next generation. Duns Scotus (d. 1300), 
admitting the Universals in the same three-fold sense, deter- 
mined the various related questions in a way peculiar to 
himself. Especially in regard to the question of the relation 
of the universal to the singular or individual, was he at war 
with his predecessors. Thomas had declared that in the indi- 
vidual, composed of form and matter {^materia signataj, the 
form was the Universal, or element common to all the indivi- 
duals ; what marked off one individual from another — the so-called 
principle of individuation — was the matter^ e.g. in Sokrates, hcec 
caro, hcec ossa. But as matter bore the character of defect or im- 
perfection, Scotus complained that this was to represent the 
individual as made imperfect in being individualized, whereas it 
was the ultima realitas, the most truly perfect form of Existence. 
The principle of individuation must be something positive, and 
not, like matter, negative. The quidditas, or universal, must be 
supplemented by a hcecceitas to make it singular or individual ; 
Sokrates was made individual by the addition of Sohratitas to his 
specific and generic characteristics as man and animal. 

The next name is of the greatest importance. William of 
OcKHAM (d. 1347), an Englishman and pupil of Duns Scotus, 
revived the nominalistic doctrine that had been so long discredited 
amongst the leading schoolmen and frowned upon by the Church. 
From him, if not earlier, is to be dated the period of the downfall of 
Scholasticism; severance beginning to be made of reason from 
faith, and philosophy being no longer prosecuted in the sole 
interest of theological dogma. 



26 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

Universals (genera, species, and the like) were, lie held, notliing 
real extra animam, but were only in mente. Calling everything that 
existed in or out of the mind a singular or individual, he asked how 
a term (termimisj like homo could be predicated of a number of indi- 
viduals. The answers of every form of Eealism, that of Duns 
Scotus included, led to absurdity ; the Eealists all began with the 
universal, and sought to explain from it the individual, whereas 
they ought to begin with the singular, which alone really exists, 
and ascend to the explanation of the universal. The true doctrine 
was that the universals were not at all in things, but in the mind ; 
and in the proposition homo est risihilis, the term homo stood not 
for any universal man, but for the real individual man, who alone 
could laugh. As to the mode of existence of the universals in the 
mind, he contented himself with enumerating various opinions 
that were or might be held, without deciding for one in particular. 
Eut he was ever ready with the warning : Entia non sunt multi^ 
pUcanda prceter necessitatem. Though he was not a nominalist pure 
and simple, — in refusing to regard the universals as mere words or 
names and nothing more — it would be committing him to more 
than he has committed himself to, if we should call him, with 
some, a Conceptualist. 

From the time of William of Ockham, the nominalistic doc- 
trine, in some shj^pe or other, remained triumphant in the schools. 
Formerly suspected and condemned, and revived by a determined 
opponent of the papal see, it yet became so firmly established as 
a philosophical tenet, that it was accepted by the most orthodox 
theologians ; and, in the last days of scholasticism, it was actually 
Eealism that became the suspicious doctrine. In fact, with philo- 
sophy growing more and more independent, and entering upon 
discussions that had no reference to religious dogma, it became 
possible for the later schoolmen to be Nominalists in regard to 
the question of Universals, while they were at the same time 
devout believers in the region of faith. It was when the question 
thus became an open one, that Eealism, as a theory of Univer- 
sals, fell into discredit : as a tendency of the human mind, 
Eealism remained active as before, and upon the extension of the 
field of philosophy at the beginning of the modern period, it oc- 
cupied new strongholds, from which it has not yet been dislodged. 

Since the age of Descartes, Nominalism or Conceptualism has 
been professed by the great majority of thinkers ; but the question 
has been allowed to sink into the second rank. In its stead, the 
discussion of the Origin of Knowledge, — in or before experience, — 
has risen into importance. When it was regarded as philo- 
sophically settled that Universals had no subsistence apart from 
the mind, it was a natural transition to pass to the consideration 
of their origin. But here, as in the question of perception, there 
has, during the whole modern period, been too little disposition 
to turn to account the results of the long mediaeval struggle. In 
the question of Innate Ideas the old question is directly involved. 

HoBBES is one of the few in later times to whom the question 



HOBBES. — LOCKE. 27 

had lost none of its significance, and lie is besides remarkable as 
perhaps tbe most outspoken representative of extreme Nomi- 
nalism. His view cannot be better or more shortly given tban 
in his own words : ' Of names, some are common to many things, 
as a man^ a tree ; others jproper to one thing, as he that writ the 
Iliad, Homer, this man, that man. And a common name, being 
the name of many things severally taken, but not collectively of 
all together (as man is not the name of all mankind, but of every 
one, as of Peter, John, and the rest severally), is therefore called 
an universal name ; and therefore this word universal is never the 
name of anything existent in nature, nor of any idea or phantasm 
formed in the mind, but always the name of some word or name ; 
so that when a living creature, a stone, a ^spirit, or any other thing, 
is said to be universal, it is not to be understood that any man, 
stone, &c., ever was or can be universal, but only that these 
words, living creature, stone, <&c., are universal names, that is, names 
common to many things ; and the conceptions answering to them 
in our mind, are the images and phantasms of several living 
creatures or other things. And, therefore, for the understanding 
of the extent of an universal name, we need no other faculty but 
that of our imagination, by which we remember that such names 
bring sometimes one thing, sometimes another, into our mind.' 
(Hobbes, Be Corpore, c. 2, § 10.) 

Locke's view of Abstraction is contained in the Third Book of 
his Essay. In Chap. III., ' Of General Terms,' he asks (§ 6), ' how 
general words came to be made, seeing that all existing things 
are particular.' He replies, ' Words become general by being 
made the signs of general ideas ; and Ideas become general, by 
separating from them the circumstances of Time and Place, and 
any other ideas that may determine them to this or that particular 
existence,' He goes on to say : — Children know nothing but par- 
ticulars; at first they know, for example, a small number of 
persons; as their experience grows they become acquainted with 
a greater number, and discern their agreements ; they then frame 
an idea to comprise these points of agreement, which is to them 
the meaning of the general term ' man ; ' they leave out of the Idea 
what is peculiar to Peter, James, and Mary, and retain what is 
common. The same process is repeated for still higher generalities, 
as * animal.' A general is nothing but the power of representing 
so many particulars. Essences and Species are only other names 
for these abstract ideas. The sorting of things under names is 
the workmanship of the understanding, taking occasion from the 
similitude it observes among them, to make abstract general ideas; 
and to set them up in the mind as Patterns or Forms, to which they 
are found to agree. That the generalities are mere ideas, or men- 
tal products, and not real existences, is shown by the different 
composition of complex ideas in different minds; the idea of 
Covetousness in one man is not what it is in another. 

Locke is thus substantially a Nominalist, but does not go deep 
into the psychological nature of general ideas. He remarks justly 



28 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

tliat the g-eneral idea proceeds upon similitude, designating the 
agreements of things, and leaving out the differences ; but he does 
not affirm that the mental notion is still a notion of one or more 
particulars. That he does not see the bearings of a thorough- 
going Nominalism, is evident from his making little use of it, 
in arguing against Innate Ideas. 

Berkeley's Nominalism is notorious and pronounced, and was 
in reality the wedge that split up, in his mind, the received 
theory of Perception. In the well-known passage in the Introduc- 
tion to his ' Principles of Human Knowledge, ' he quotes the con- 
ceptualist doctrine, — as implying that the mind can form an idea 
of colour in the abstract by sinking every individual colour, and 
of motion in the abstract without conceiving a body moved, or the 
figure, direction, and velocity of the motion, — and comments upon 
the doctrine in these terms : — ' Whether others have this wonder- 
ful faculty of abstracting their ideas, they best can tell. For 
myself, I find, indeed, I have a faculty of imagining, or represent- 
ing to myself the ideas of those particular things I have perceived, 
and of variously compounding and dividing them. I can imagine 
a man with two heads, or the upper part of a man joined to the 
body of a horse. I can consider the hand, the eye, the nose, each 
by itself abstracted or separated from the rest of the body. But 
then, whatever hand or eye I imagine, it must have some particular 
shape and colour. Likewise, the idea of man that I frame to 
myself, must be either of a white, or a black, or a tawny; a 
straight, or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized man. I 
cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above 
described. And it is equally impossible to form the abstract idea 
of motion distinct from the body moving, and which is neither 
swift nor slow, curvilinear nor rectilinear; and the like may be 
said of all other abstract general ideas whatsoever. To be 
plain, I own myself able to abstract in one sense, as when I con- 
sider some particular parts or qualities separated from others, 
with which though they are united in some object, yet it is 
possible they may really exist without them. But I deny that I 
can abstract one from another, or conceive separately, those 
qualities which it is impossible should exist separated ; or that I 
can frame a general notion by abstracting from particulars in the 
manner aforesaid, which two last are the proper acceptations of 
abstractions.' 

Berkeley recognizes in particular objects a power of representing 
a class ; as when the geometer demonstrates a proposition upon a 
particular triangle, and infers it for all triangles. In this way, he 
r-ays, the particular may become general, by standing for a whole 
class. The expression is incautious on his part ; a general par- 
ticular is an anomaly and a contradiction. 

Hume follows Berkeley's Nominalism ^sfiih. avidity and admir- 
ation, and inadvertently ascribes to Berkeley the authorship of the 
doctrine. * A very material question,' he says, * has been started 
concerning abstract or general ideas, whether they be general or 



H UME. — REID. — STEWART. 29 

particular in the mind's conception of them. A great philosopher 
(Dr. Berkeley) has disputed the received opinion in this particular, 
and has asserted that all general ideas are nothing but particular 
ones annexed to a certain term, which gives them a more extensive 
signification, and makes them recall upon occasion other indivi- 
duals which are similar to them. As I look upon this to be one 
of the greatest and most valuable discoveries that has been made 
of late years in the republic of letters, I shall here endeavour to 
confirm it by some arguments, which I hope will put it beyond 
all doubt and controversy.' 

He states his view thus : — ' All general ideas are nothing but 
particular ones annexed to a certain term, which gives them a 
more extensive signification, and makes them recall upon occasion 
other individuals which are similar to them [488]. A particular 
idea becomes general by being annexed to a general term, that is, 
to a term which, from a customary conjunction, has a relation to 
many other particular ideas, and readily recalls them in the 
imagination. Abstract ideas are therefore in themselves indivi- 
dual, however they may become general in their representation. 
The image in the mind is only that of a particular object, though 
the application of it in our reasoning be the same as if it was 
universal.' 

Eeid (Intellectual Powers — Essay on Abstraction) contends 
for the mind's power of forming general conceptions. He starts 
from the faculties of discerning difference and agreement ; by 
these we are enabled to form classes, the names of which are 
general names. Such general names may be presumed to be the 
signs of general conceptions. We are able to form distinct con- 
ceptions of the separate attributes of anything, as length, breadth, 
figure, and so on. Indeed, our knowledge of a thing consists of 
the knowledge of those attributes ; we know nothing of the 
essence of an individual apart from these. We can conceive a 
triangle, not merely as an individual, with its attributes of size, 
place, and time, but to the exclusion of these individualizing 
attributes. Attributes, inseparable in nature, may yet be dis- 
joined in our conception. The general names of attributes are 
applicable to many individuals in the same sense, which cannot 
be if there are no general conceptions. 

Eeid refers to the history of the question of Eealism and 
Nominalism. He dwells chiefly on the views of Berkeley and of 
Hume, declaring them to be no other than the opinions of the 
[N'ominalists and of Hobbes. On the whole, he confesses his 
ignorance of the ' manner how we conceive universals,' admitting, 
at the same time, that it cannot be by images of them, for there 
can be no image of a universal. In fact, Eeid's position coincides 
very nearly with Conceptualism. 

DuGALD Stewakt avows himself on the side of K'ominalism, 
and deduces from the doctrine what he considers important con- 
sequences. There are two ways of seizing hold of general tmths ; 
either by fixing the attention on one individual in such a manner. 



30 APPENDIX — NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

that our reasoning may involve no circumstances "but what are 
common to the whole genus, — or, (laying aside entirely the con- 
sideration of things), by means of general terms. In either case, 
our conclusions must be general. The first method is exemplified 
in the diagrams of Geometry ; the second in the symbols of Algebra. 

The Abstract Idea is nothing more than the quality or qualities 
wherein different individuals resemble one another. Abstraction 
is the power of attending to the resembling attributes, and 
neglecting the points of difference. 

Although Stewart is thus an avowed nominalist, he yet failed 
to see the incompatibility between his doctrine and the theory of 
innate ideas, or the origin he assigns to such notions as * causation, 
time, number, truth, certainty, probability, extension ; ' which 
relate, he says, to things bearing no resemblance either to any of 
the sensible qualities of matter, or to any continuous mental 
operation. In short, we can have no idea of cause, apart alto- 
gether from causation in the concrete, as given us by perception 
through sense. 

Thomas Brown expresses the generalizing process thus : There 
is, in the first place, the perception of two or more objects ; in the 
second place, the feeling or notion [better cojisciousness'] of their 
resemblance ; and, lastly, the expression of this common relative 
feeling by a name, afterwards used as a general name for all those 
objects, the perception of which is followed by the same common 
feeling of resemblance. Brown thus approaches to the main 
position of Nominalism, the affirmation of Eesemblance among 
jDarticular objects; but he lays himself open to criticism by his 
mode of expressing this fact of resemblance ; he calls it ' a feeling,' 
' a general notion,' ' a common relative feeling,' ' a common 
feeling of relation ; ' all which are awkward and confused modes 
of stating that we perceive or discern the likeness of the particulars 
in question. The term ' feeling ' is inappropriate as giving an 
emotional character to an intellectual fact. 

In criticising Berkeley's handling of geometrical demon- 
stration, Brown maintains that we have still a general notion, or 
' relative feeling,' of the circumstances of agreement of particular 
things; without which general notion of a line, or a ti-iangle, 
he thinks the demonstrations impossible and absurd. He says 
it is the very nature of a general notion not to be particular : 
for who can paint or particularize a mere relation ? This is, on 
Brown's part, the vague mode of affirming that a general word 
designates certain particulars, together with the fact of their 
resemblance. As to the difficulty connected with mathematical 
demonstration, the remark may be made, that if the use of the 
general word ' triangle ' irnplies the resemblance of a given figure 
to a great number of other figures, then so far as that resemblance 
goes, what is proved of one is proved of all ; and no fictitious 
triangle in the abstract is required. The affirmation of resem- 
blance carries with it the ' parity of reasoning ' assigned as the 
mode of geometrical proof. 



HAMILTON. — JAMES MILL. 31 

Hamilton regards the whole controversy of Nominalism and 
Conceptualism as ' founded on the ambiguity of the terms em- 
ployed. The opposite parties are substantially at one. Had our 
British philosophers been aware of the Leibnitzian distinction of 
Intuitive and SymboKcal Knowledge; and had we, like the 
Germans, different terms, like Begriff and Anschauung, to denote 
different kinds of thought, there would have been as little differ- 
ence of opinion in regard to the nature of general notions in 
this country as in the Empire. With us, Idea, Notion, Con- 
ception, &c., are confounded, or applied by different philosophers 
in different senses. I must put the reader on his guard against 
Dr. Thomas Brown's speculations on this subject. His own doc- 
trine of universals, in so far as it is peculiar, is self- contradictory ; 
and nothing can be more erroneous than his statement of the 
doctrine held by others, especially by the Nomraalists.' 

In some parts of his writings, Hamilton expresses the Nomi- 
nalistic view with great exactness; while in others, and in his 
Logical system generally, he admits a form of Conceptualism. 
(See passages quoted in Mill's Hamilton, chap. XYII.) He con- 
siders that there are thoughts such as * cannot be represented in 
the imagination, as the thought suggested hy a general term^ (Edition 
of Eeid, p. 360). He also holds that we have a priori abstract 
ideas of Space and Time, a view difficult to reconcile with 
Nominalism. 

James Mill introduced some novelty into the mode of describ- 
ing the idea corresponding to a general term. Suppose, he says, 
the word foot has been associated in the mind of a child with one 
foot only, it will in that case call up the idea of that one, and not 
of the other. Suppose next, that the same name ' foot' begins to 
be applied to the child's other foot. The sound is now associated 
not constantly with one thing, but sometimes with one thing, and 
sometimes with another. The consequence is that it calls up 
sometimes the one and sometimes the other. Again, the word 'man' 
is first applied to an individual ; at first, therefore, it calls to mind 
that individual ; it is then applied to another and another, and 
thus acquires the power of calling up any one or more of a large 
number indifferently. The result is that the word becomes asso- 
ciated with the idea of a crowd, a complex and indistinct idea. 
Thus the word * man' is not a word having a very simple idea, as 
was the opinion of the Eealists ; nor a word having no idea at all, 
as was the view of the Nominalists; but a word calling up an 
indefinite number of ideas, by the power of association, and 
forming them into one very complex, and indistinct, but not 
therefore unintelligible, idea. 

In this mode of stating the nature of the general idea, the 
author has brought into view one part of the operation, not pre- 
viously laid stress upon ; the fact that the general name brings to 
mind the particulars as a host, which is an important part of the 
case. In making general affirmations, we must be perpetually 
running over the particulars, to see that our generality conflicts' 



32 APPENDIX— NOMINALISM AND REALISM. 

witli none of them ; this constitutes the arduousness of general or 
abstract reasoning. Still, exception has been taken to the phrase 
*a complex and indistinct idea' applied to the association with a 
general name ; and a more guarded expression is desirable. The 
author's meaning is, first, that the name recalls not one individual, 
but many, and secondly, that a certain indistinctness belongs to 
our conception of the crowd. Both statements, with some explana- 
tion, are true. We do recall a number of individuals, in a rapid 
series ; we can hardly be said to have them all before us at a 
glance ; that would happen only if we had actually seen an as- 
sembled host ; we pass from one to the others by rapid transitions. 
In the second place, as a consequence of the rapidity of the transi- 
tions, and of our examining the individuals only with reference to 
one point, we may be said to have an indistinct, or partial image 
of each ; it being the tendency of the mind, in rapid thinking, to 
economize attention, by neglecting all the aspects of an object not 
relevant at the time. In speaking of what is common to birds, 
say ' feathers,' we glance hurriedly at a number of individuals, but 
we do not unfold to viev/ the full individuality of each. The more 
complex a thing is, the greater the number of separate glances 
requisite to comprehend it, both at first and in the memory ; we 
may therefore stop short at a partial view, but this is not to be 
confounded with an abstract idea in the meaning of Conceptualism. 

Samuel Bailey (Letters on the Human Mind, Vols. I., II.) 
has examined with great care the doctrine of general terms, being 
of opinion ' that a complete mastery of this part of mental philo- 
sophy furnishes a key for most of the difficulties besetting the 
subject, and throws a powerful light on all speculation whatso- 
ever.' He makes full use of the nominalistic theory in refuting 
Innate Ideas. 

According to him, there is no essential difference between 
what passes in the mind when proper names are heard, and when 
general names are heard. The pecuHar feature, in the case of 
general names, may be stated to be, that there is possibly and 
frequently, but not necessarily, a greater range in the mental 
representations called up by any single appellation; still there is 
nothing but an individual image, or a group or a succession of 
individual images or representations passing through the mind. 
It must be obvious, on reflection, that this is, in truth, the only 
possible effect of general terms. We rank individual objects under 
a common name, on account of their resemblance to each other in 
one or more respects ; and when we use such an appellation, the 
utmost that the nature of the case allows us to do, whether the 
name has been imposed by ourselves or others, is to recall to our 
own minds, or to those of our hearers, the whole of the single 
objects thus classed together. This is an extreme case, which, no 
doubt, may happen ; but the result is usually far short of such a 
complete ideal muster, and we recall only a very inconsiderable 
part, or even sometimes only one, of the objects covered by the 
' general term. It also appears that, if the ideas thus raised up 



PLATO ON KEMINISCENCE. 33 

are sometimes vague and indefinite, the same qualities frequently 
characterize the ideas raised up by proper names, and attend even 
the perception of external objects. 

' B. — The Origin of Knoivledge — Uxj^erience and Intuition^ 

p. 188. 

The dialogues of Plato present a number of different views of 
the nature and origin of knowledge. One of the most charac- 
teristic, the doctrine of Reminiscence, as set forth in the Phsedrus, 
Phaedon, and Menon, supposes the soul in a pre- existent state to 
have lived in the contemplation of the Eternal Ideas, and, when 
joined to a body, to have brought away slumbering recollections 
of them, revivable by the impressions of sense ; all cognition, but 
especially the true, consists in such awakening of the mind's 
ancient knowledge lying dormant. This is a highly«poetical pre- 
sentation of the later doctrine of Innate Ideas. In the Eepublic, 
with the same fundamental conception of the origin of knowledge, 
he distinguishes its different grades : Cognition of Intelligibles is 
opposed to Opinion of Sensibles, and again each of them includes 
a higher and lower form — Cognition is Nous or Dianoia as it is 
direct or indirect, and Opinion may be Belief or mere Conjecture. 
The most explicit discussion of the question, What is knowledge ? 
is in the Thesetetus. There, while at the end he does not pretend 
to have given any settlement, in the course of the argument against 
the reduction of knowledge to sense-perception, he advances 
a peculiar theory. When the mind perceives sensible qualities 
like hardness, heat, sweetness, &c., it perceives them not luith, but 
tliToiigh, the senses. This at birth and equally in all : but some 
few, by going over and comparing simple impressions of sense, 
come to be able to apprehend, besides existence (essence and sub- 
stance), sameness, difference, likeness, unlikeness, good, and evil, 
&c., where the apprehension is by the mind, of itself alone, and 
without any aid of bodily organs. This is a remarkable view, 
because, as has been observed, he supposes these cognitions to be 
developed only out of the review and comparison of facts of sense, 
and only by a select few — two points wherein he is at variance 
with the common supporters of native mental intuitions (See 
Grote's Plato II., p. 370, seq,). 

We shall next advert to Aristotle's opinions in regard to the 
existence of a class of primary or self-evident truths, claiming a 
right to be believed on the authority of Common Sense, without 
either warrant or limit from experience. 

Sir William Hamilton (in his Dissertations on Peid, Appendix, 
p. 771-773) enrolls Aristotle with confidence among the philoso- 
phers that have vindicated the authority of Common Sense, as 
accrediting certain universal truths, independent of experience, 
and imposing a necessity of belief, such as experience never can 
impose. Yet, of all the Aristotelian passages cited by Sir W. 



34 APPENDIX — OEIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Hamilton to establish this position, only one (that from the 
Nicomachean Ethics, X., 2, p. 772, marked /. by Hamilton) 
has any real force ; and that is countervailed by numerous others 
that he leaves unnoticed, as well as by the marked general tenor 
of Aristotle's writings. 

In regard to Aristotle, there are two points to be examined — 

1. What position does he take up in respect to the authority 

of Common Sense ? 

2. WTiat doctrine does he lay down about the first prin- 

cipia or beginnings of scientific reasoning — the apX"^ 

avWoyicTTiKai ? 
I.-That Aristotle did not regard Cause, Substance, Time, &c., as 
Intuitions, is shown by the subtle and elaborate reasonings that 
he employs to explain them, and by the censure that he bestows 
on the erroneous explanations and shortcomings of others. Indeed, 
in regard to Causality, when we read the great and perplexing 
diversity of meaning which Aristotle (and Plato before him in the 
Phsedon) recognizes as belonging to this term, we cannot but be 
surprised to find modern philosox)hers treating it as enunciating 
a simple and intuitive idea. But as to Common Sense — taking 
the term as above explained, and as it is usually understood by 
those that have no particular theory to support — Aristotle takes 
up a position at once distinct and instructive ; a position (to use 
the phraseology of Kant) not dogmatical, but critical. He con- 
stantly notices and reports the affirmations of Common Sense ; he 
speaks of it with respect, and assigns to it a qualified value, partly 
as helping us to survey the subject on all sides, partly as a happy 
confirmation, where it coincides with what has been proved other- 
wise ; but he does not appeal to it as authority in itself trust- 
worthy or imperative. 

Common Sense belongs to the region of opinion. Now, the 
distinction between matters of Opinion on the one hand, and 
matters of Science or Cognition on the other, is a marked and 
characteristic feature of Aristotle's philosophy. He sets, in 
pointed antithesis, De:moxsteatiox, or the method of Science — 
which divides itself into special subjects, each having some special 
principia of its own, then proceeds by legitimate steps of deductive 
reasoning from such principia, and arrives at conclusions some- 
times universally true, always true for the most part — against 
Rhetoric and Dialectic, Avhich deal with and discuss opinions 
upon all subjects, comparing opposite arguments, and landing in 
results more or less probable. Contrasting these two as separate 
lines of intellectual procedure, Aristotle lays down a theory of 
both. He recognizes the last as being to a great degree the 
common and spontaneous growth of society; while the first is 
from the beginning special, not merely as to subject, but as to 
persons — implying teacher and learner. 

Ehetoric and Dialectic arc treated by Aristotle as analogous 
processes. Of the matter of opinion and belief, with which both 
of them deal, he distinguishes three varieties : — 1. Opinions or 



AETSTOTLE ON COMMON SENSE. 35 

beliefs entertained by all. 2. By the majority. 3. By a minority 
of superior men, or by one man in respect to a science wherein lie 
has acquired renown. It is these opinions or beliefs that the 
rhetorician or the dialectician attack and defend ; bringing out all 
the arguments available for or against each. 

The Aristotelian treatise on Rhetoric opens with the following 
words : — ' Ehetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic ; for both of 
them deal with such matters as do not fall within any special 
science, but belong in a certain way to the common know- 
ledge of all. Hence every individual has his share of both, 
greater or less ; for every one can, up to a certain point, both 
examine others and stand examination from others; every one 
tries to defend himself and to accuse others.'* To the same pur- 
pose Aristotle speaks about Dialectics, in the beginning of the 
Topica : — ' The Dialectic Syllogism (he says) takes its pre- 
mises from matters of opinion : that is, from matters that 
seem good to (or are believed by) all, or the majority, or the wise; 
either all the wise, or most of them, or the most celebrated.' — 
Aristotle distinguishes these matters of common opinion or belief , 
from three distinct other matters. 1 . From matters that are not 
really such, but only in appearance ; in which the smallest atten- 
tion suffices to detect the false pretence of probability, while no 
one except a contentious Sophist ever thinks of advancing them. 
On the contrary, the real matters of common belief are never thus 
palpably false, but have always something deeper than a superficial 
show. 2. From the first truths or principia, upon which scientific 
demonstration proceeds. 3. From the paralogisms, or fallacious 
assumptions [-iptvooypa^rjiiara)^ liable to occur in each particular 
science. 

Now, what Aristotle here designates and defines as * matters 
of common opinion and belief ' {rd tvdo^a)^ includes all that is 
usually meant, and properly meant, by Common Sense; * what 
is believed by all men or by most men.' But Aristotle does not 
claim any warrant or authority for the truth of these beliefs, 
on the ground of their being deliverances of Common Sense, and 
accepted (by all or by the majority) always as indisputable, often 
as self-evident. On the contrary, he ranks them as mere proba- 
bilities, some in a greater, some in a less degree; as matters 
whereon something may be said hoth pro and con, and whereon the 
fall force of argument on both sides ought to be brought out, 
notwithstanding the supposed self-evidence in the minds of un- 
scientific believers. Though, however, he encourages this dialectic 
discussion on both sides, as useful and instructive, he never affirms 
that it can, by itself, lead to certain scientific conclusions, or to 
anything more than strong probability on a balance of the coun- 
tervailing considerations. The language that he uses in speaking of 
these deliverances of common sense is measured and just. After 
distinguishing the real common opinion from the fallacious simu- 

* Aristot. Rhetor. I. 1. Compare Sophist. Elench., p. 172, a. 30, 



36 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

lations of common opinion set up (according to Hm) by some 
pretenders, he declares, that in all cases of common opinion there 
is always something more than a mere superficial appearance ol 
truth. In other words, wherever any opinion is really held by a 
large public, it always deserves the scrutiny of the philosopher, 
to ascertain how far it is erroneous, and, if it be erroneous, by 
what appearances of reason it has been enabled so far to prevail. 

Again, at the beginning of the Topica (in which books he gives 
both a theory and precepts of dialectical debate), Aristotle specifies 
four different ends to be served by that treatise. It will be useful 
(he says) — 

1. For our own practice in the work of debate. If we acquire 
a method and system, we shall find it easier to conduct a debate 
on any new subject, whenever such debate may arise. 

2. For our daily intercourse with the ordinary public. When 
we have made for ourselves a full collection of the opinions held 
by the Many^ we shall carry on our conversation with them out 
of their own doctrines, and not out of doctrines foreign to their 
minds ; we shall thus be able to bring them round on any matter 
where we think them in error. 

3. For the sciences belonging to philosophy. By discussing 
the difficulties on both sides, we shall more easily discriminate 
truth and falsehood in each separate scientific question. 

4. For the first and highest among the principia of each parti- 
cular science. These, since they are the first and highest of all, 
cannot be discussed out of principia special and peculiar to any 
separate science; but must be discussed through the opinions 
commonly received on the subject-matter of each. This is the 
main province of Dialectic: which, being essentially testing. and 
critical, is connected by some threads with the principia of all the 
various scientific researches. 

We see thus that Aristotle's language about Common Opinion 
or Common Sense is very guarded : that, instead of citing it as 
an authority, he carefully discriminates it from Science, and places 
it decidedly on a level lower than science, in respect of evidence : 
yet that he recognizes it as essential to be studied by the scientific 
man, with full confrontation of all the reasonings both for and 
against every opinion ; not merely because such study will enable 
the scientific man to study and converse intelligibly and effi- 
caciously wdth the vulgar ; but also because it will sharpen his 
discernment for the truths of his ow^n science; and because it 
furnishes the only materials for testing and limiting the first 
principia of that science. 

II. — We will next advert to the judgment of Aristotle re- 
specting these principia of science ; how he supposes them to be 
acquired and verified. He discriminates various special sciences 
(geometry, arithmetic, . astronomy, &c.), each of Avhich has its 
own appropriate matter, and special principia from w^hich it takes 
its departure. But there are also certain 2)rlncipia common to 
them all : and these he considers to fall under the cognizance of 



ARISTOTLE ON THE SOURCE OF FIRST PRINCIPLES. 37 

one grand comprehensive science, which includes all the rest: 
First Philosophy or Ontology — the science of Ens in its most 
general sense, quatenus Ens ; while each of the separate Sciences 
confines itself to one exclusive department of Ens. The geometer 
does not debate nor prove the first principia of his own science : 
neither those that it has in common with other sciences, nor 
those peculiar to itself. He takes these for granted, and demon- 
strates the consequences that logically follow from them. It 
belongs to the First Philosopher to discuss the principia of all. 
Accordingly, the province of the First Philosopher is all-compre- 
hensive, co-extensive with all the sciences. So also is the province 
of the Dialectician alike all- comprehensive. Thus far the two 
agree ; but they differ as to method and purpose. The Dialec- 
tician seeks to enforce, confront, and value all the different 
reasons pro and con^ consistent and inconsistent : the First Philo- 
sopher performs this too, or supposes it to be performed by others 
— but proceeds farther: namely, to determine certain axioms 
that may be trusted as sure grounds (along with certain other 
principiaj for demonstrative conclusions in science. 

Aristotle describes in his Analytica the process of demonstra- 
tion, and the conditions required to render it valid. But what is 
the point of departure for this process ? Aristotle declares that 
there cannot be a regress without end, demonstrating one con- 
clusion from certain premises, then demonstrating those premises 
from others, and so on. You must arrive ultimately at some pre- 
mises that are themselves undemonstrable, but that may be 
trusted as ground from whence to start in demonstrating con- 
clusions. All demonstration is carried on through a middle term, 
which links together the two terms of the conclusion, though 
itself does not appear in the conclusion. Those undemonstrable 
propositions, from which demonstration begins, must be known 
without a middle term — that is, immediately known ; they must 
be known in themselves — that is, not through any other propo- 
sitions ; they must be better known than the conclusions derived 
from them ; they must be propositions first and most knowable. 
But these two last epithets (Aristotle often repeats) have two 
meanings : First and most knowable by nature or absolutely, are 
the most universal propositions : first and most knowable to us, 
are those propositions declaring the particular facts of sense. 
These two meanings designate truths correlative to each other, 
but at opposite ends of the intellectual line of marcli. 

Of these undemonstrable j^rwza^m, indispensable as the grounds 
of all demonstration, some are peculiar to each separate science, 
others are common to several or to all sciences. These common 
principles were called Axioms, in the mathematics, even in the 
time of Aristotle. Sometimes indeed he designates them as 
Axioms, without any special reference to mathematics : though he 
also uses the same name to denote other propositions, not of the 
like fundamental character. Now, how do we come to know these 
undemonstrable Axioms and other immediate propositions or 



38 APPENDIX — OKIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

jprincipia^ since we do not know them by demonstration ? Thia is 
the second question to be answered, in appreciating Aristotle's 
views about the Philosophy of Common Sense. 

He is very explicit in his way of answering this question. He 
pronounces it absurd to suppose that these immediate principia 
are innate or congenital, — in other words, that we possess them 
from the beginning, and yet that we remain for a long time 
without any consciousness of possessing them, seeing that they 
are the most accurate of all our cognita. What we possess at the 
beginning (Aristotle says) is only a mental power of inferior 
accuracy and dignity. We, as well as all other animals, begin 
with a congenital discriminative power called sensible perception. 
With many animals, the data of perception are transient, and 
soon disappear altogether, so that the cognition of such animals 
consists in nothing but successive acts of sensible perception. 
With us, on the contrary, as with some other animals, the data 
of perception are preserved by memory ; accordingly our cogni- 
tions include both perceptions and remembrances. Farthermore, 
we are distinguished even from the better animals by this difference 
— that with us, but not with them, a rational order of thought 
grows out of such data of perception, when multiplied and long 
preserved. And thus, out of perception grows memory : out of 
memory of the same matter often repeated, grows experience — 
since many remembrances of the same thing constitute one nu- 
merical experience. Out of such experience, a farther conse- 
quence arises — That what is one and the same, in all the particulars, 
(the Universal or the one alongside of the many) becomes fixed or 
rests steadily within the mind. Herein lies the principium of 
Art, in reference to Agenda, or Facienda — of Science, in reference 
to Entia. 

Thus these cognitive principia are not original and determinate 
possessions of the mind— nor do they spring from any other mental 
possessions of a higher cognitive order, but simply from data 
of sensible perception : which data are like runaway soldiers in a 
panic — first one stops his flight and halts, then a second follows 
the example, afterwards a third and fourth, until at length an 
orderly array is obtained. Our minds are so constituted as to 
render this possible. If a single individual impression is thus de- 
tained, it will presently acquire the character of a Universal in the 
mind : for though we perceive the particular, our perception is of 
the universal (i.e., when we perceive Kallias, our perception is of 
man generally, not of the man Kallias). Again, the fixture of 
these lowest Universals in the mind will bring in those of the 
next highest order ; until at length the Summa Genera and the 
absolute Universals acquire a steady establishment therein. Thus, 
from this or that particular animal, we shall rise as high as 
Animal Universally : and so on from Animal upwards. 

We thus see clearly (Aristotle says) — That only by Induction 
can we come to know the first principia of demonstration : for it 
is by this process that sensible perception engraves the Universal 



FIRST PRINCIPLES COME AT BY INDUCTIOIT, 39 

on our minds.* We begin by the notiora nohis (Particulars), and 
ascend to the notiora naturd or simpliciter (Universals). Some 
among our mental habits that are conversant with truth, are 
also capable of falsehood (such as Opinion and Eeasoning) : others 
are not so capable, but embrace uniformly truth, and nothing but 
truth — sch are Science and Intellect (Nouc). Intellect is the 
only source more accurate than Science. Now, the principia 
of Demonstration are more accurate than the Demonstrations 
themselves — yet they cannot (as we have already observed) be the 
objects of Science. They must therefore be the object of what 
is more accurate than Science : namely, of Intellect. Intel- 
lect and the objects of Intellect will thus be the principia of 
Science and of the objects of Science. But these principles are not 
intuitive data or revelations. They are acquisitions gradually 
made : and there is a regular road whereby we travel up to them, 
quite distinct from the road whereby we travel down from them 
to scientific conclusions. 

The chapter just indicated in the Analytica Posteriora, attest- 
ing the growth of those universals that form the principia of 
demonstration out of the particulars of sense, may be illustrated by 
a similar statement in the first book of the Metaphysica. Here, 
after stating that sensible perception is common to all animals, he 
distinguishes the lowest among animals, who have this alone; 
then, a class next above them, who have it along with phantasy 
and memory, and some of whom are intelligent (like bees), yet 
still cannot learn, from being destitute of hearing ; farther, another 
class, one stage higher, who hear, and therefore can be taught 
something, yet arrive only at a scanty sum of experience ; lastly, 
still higher, the class men, who possess a large stock of phantasy, 
memory, and experience, fructifying into science and art.f 
Experience (Aristotle says) is of particular facts ; art and science 

* Aristot. Anal. Post. IL, p. 100, b. 2, dyjXov drj on r}fj.7v to, Tzpuira 
tTraycoyy yviopi^fiv dvayKoiov ' koX yap Kal aiadrjaiQ ovru) to KaOoXoh 
kfiTTOiu; also Anal. Post. I., p. 81, b. 3, c. 18, — upon which passage, 
VVaitz, in his note, explains as follows (p. 347): 'Sententia nostri loci 
hsec est. Universales propositiones oranes inductione comparantur, 
quum etiam in lis, quae a sensibus maxime aliena videntur, et quas (ut 
mathematica, rd e^ cKpaipsaetoQ) cogitatione separantur a materia quacum 
conjuncta sunt, inductione probentur ea quae de genere {e.g. de linea, de 
corpore mathematico) ad quod demonstratio pertineat prsedicentur KaO' 
dvrd et cum ejus natura conjuncta sint, Inductio autem iis nititur quae 
sensibus percipiuntur : nam res singulares sentiuntur, scientia vero rerum 
singularium non datur sine inductione, non datur inductio sine sensu.' 

t Aristot. Metaphys. A. I. 980, a. 25, b. 27, ^p6vLjj,a jjlsv dvev rov 
fiavOdveiv, oaa /x?) ^vvnTai rCjv xjjocpdjv d/covsLV, olov /isXtrra, Kal ft rt 
Toiovrov dWo ysvog (^wojv tariv. 

We remark here the line that he draws between the intelligence of 
bees, depending altogether upon sense, memory, and experience — and the 
Jiigher intelligence which is superadded by the use of langimge ; when it 
becomes possible to teach and learn, and when general conceptions can 
be brought into view through appropriate names. 



40 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

are of universals. Art is attained, when out of many conceptions 
of experience there arises one universal persuasion respecting 
phenomena similar to each other. "We may know that Kallias, 
sick of a certain disease — that Sokrates, likewise sick of it — that 
A, B, C, and other individuals besides, — have been cured by a given 
remedy ; but this persuasion respecting ever so many individual 
cases, is mere matter of experience. When, however, we proceed 
to generalize these cases, and then affirm that the remedy cures 
all persons suffering under the same disease, circumscribed by 
specific marks— fever or biliousness — this is art or science. One 
man may know the particular cases empirically, without having 
generalized them into a doctrine ; another may have learnt the 
general doctrine, with little or no knowledge of the particular 
cases. Of these two, the last is the wiser and more philosophical 
man ; but the first may be the more effective and successful as a 
practitioner. 

In the passage above noticed, Aristotle draws the line of intel- 
lectual distinction between man and the lower animals. If he had 
considered that it was the prerogative of man to possess a stock 
of intuitive general truths, ready-made, and independent of 
experience, this w^as the occasion for saying so. He says the exact 
contrary. 'No modern psychologist could proclaim more fully than 
Aristotle here does, the derivation of all general concepts and 
general propositions from the phenomena of sense, through the 
successive stages of memory, association, comparison, abstraction. 
No one could give a more explicit acknowledgment of Induction 
from particulars of sense, as the process whereby we reach 
ultimately those propositions of the highest imiversalifcy, as well 
as of the highest certainty; from whence, by legitimate deductive 
syllogism, we descend to demonstrate various conclusions. There 
is nothing in Aristotle about generalities originally inherent in 
the mind, connate although dormant at first and unknown, until 
they are evoked or elicited by the senses : nothing to countenance 
that nice distinction eulogized so emphatically by Hamilton 
(p. 772, a. note) : ' Cognitio nostra amoris a mente primam 
originem, a Sensibus exordium habet primum.' In Aristotle's 
view, the Senses furnish both oi^iginem and exordium : the succes- 
sive stages of mental procedure, whereby we rise from sense to 
universal proijositions, are multiplied and gradual, without any 
break. He even goes so far as to say that ' we have sensible per- 
ception of the Universal.' His language undoubtedly calls for 
much criticism here. We shall only say that it discountenances 
altogether the doctrine that represents the Mind or Intellect as 
an original source of First or Universal Truths peculiar to itself. 
That opinion is mentioned by Aristotle, but mentioned only to be 
rejected. He denies that the mind possesses any such ready-made 
stores, latent until elicited into consciousness. Moreover, it is 
remarkable that the ground whereon he denies it, is much the 
same as that whereon the advocates of intuitions affirm it — viz., 
the supreme accuracy of these axioms. Aristotle cannot believe 



ARISTOTLE OPPOSED TO INTUITIVE COGNITIONS. 41 

that the mind includes cognitions of sucli value, without being 
conscious thereof. Nor will he grant that the mind possesses any- 
native and inherent power of originating these inestimable prin^ 
cipia* He declares that they are generated in the mind only by 
the slow process of induction, as above described ; beginning from 
the perceptive power (common to man with animals), together 
with that first stage of the intelligence (judging or discriminative) 
which he combines or identifies with perception, considering it to 
be alike congenital. From this humble basis, men can rise to the 
highest grades of cognition, though animals cannot. We even 
become competent (Aristotle says) to have sensible perception of 
the Universal : in the man Kallias, we see man ; in the ox feeding- 
near us, we see animal. 

It must be remembered that when Aristotle, in this analysis 
of cognition, speaks of Induction, he means induction completely 
and accurately performed ; just as, when he talks of Demonstration, 
he intends a good and legitimate demonstration; and just as (to use 
his own illustration in the Nicomachean Ethics), when he reasons 
upon a harper, or other professional artist, he always tacitly im- 
plies a good and accomplished artist. Induction, thus understood, 
and Demonstration, he considers to be the two processes for obtain- 
ing scientific faith or conviction ; both of them being alike cogent 
and necessary, but Induction even more so than Demonstration ; 
because if the principia furnished by the former were not necessary, 
neither could the conclusions deduced from them by the latter be 
necessary. Induction may thus stand alone v/ithout demonstra- 
tion, but demonstration pre-supposes and postulates induction. 
Accordingly, when Aristotle proceeds to specify those functions of 
mind wherewith the inductive principia and the demonstrated 
conclusions correlate, he refers both of them to functions wherein 
(according to him) the mind is unerring and infallible — Intellect 
(NoD^) and Science. But, between these two, he ranks Intellect 
as the higher, and he refers the inductive principia to Intellect. 
Tie does not mean that Intellect ['Novg) generates or produces these 
principles. On the contrary, he distinctly negatives such a sup- 
position, and declares that no generative force of this high order 
resides in the Intellect : while he tells us, with equal distinctness, 
that they are generated from a lower source — sensible perception, 

*■ Aristot. Anal. Post. II. 19, p. 99, b. 26, el drj txoiisv aurag, droTron 
avfilSaivei yap aKpifSeaTspag Exovrag yvwcreig d-rrodu^eiog Xavddvuv — 
<pnvepov Toivov on ovt tx^^v olov rs, ovt dyvoovai Kal iirjdefxiav 'ixovaiv 
i^iv kyyivtaQai. dvayKT} dpa 'ix^^^ A*^^ Tiva dvvafiiv, [j,r} Toidvrrjv d' ex^iv 
H] ecrrai tovtiov rifjuiorkpa Kar uKpifiuav. See Metaphys. A. 993, a. 1. 

Some modern psychologists, who admit that general propositions of a, 
lower degree of universality are raised from induction and sense, contend 
that propositions of the highest universality are not so raised, but are the 
intuitive ofispring of the intellect. Aristotle does not countenance such a 
doctrine : he says (Metaphys. A. 2,982, a. 22) that these truths furthest 
removed from sense are the most difficult to know of all. If they were 
intuitions, they would be the common possession of the race, 
22 



42 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

and through the gradual upward march of the inductive process. 
To say that they originate from sense through Induction, and 
nevertheless to refer them to Intellect (Novg) as th«ir subjective cor- 
relate — are not positions inconsistent with each other, in the view of 
Aristotle, He expressly distinguishes the two points, as requiring 
to be separately dealt with. By referring the principia to Intellect 
(NoDi), he does not intend to indicate their generating source, but 
their evidentiary value and dignity when generated and matured. 
They possess, in his view, the maximum of dignity, certainty, 
cogency, and necessity, because it is from them that even Demon- 
stration derives the necessity of its conclusions ; accordingly (pur- 
suant to the inclination of the ancient philosophers for presuming 
affinity and commensurate dignity between the Cognitum and the 
Cognoscens), they belong as objective correlates to the most un- 
erring cognitive function — the Intellect {'Novg), It is the Intellect 
that grasps these principles, and applies them to their legitimate 
purpose of scientific demonstration ; hence, Aristotle calls Intellect 
not only the principium of Science, but the principium principii. 

In the Analytica, froln which we have hitherto cited, Aristotle 
explains the structure of the syllogism and the process of demon- 
stration. He has in view mainly (though not exclusively) the 
more exact sciences, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, &c. But 
he expressly tells us that all departments of inquiry are not cap- 
able of this exactness ; that some come nearer to it than others ; 
that we must be careful to require no more exactness from each 
than the subject admits ; and that the method adopted by us 
must be such as will attain the admissible maximum of exact- 
ness. Now, each subject has some principia, and among them 
definitions, peculiar to itself; though there are also some prin- 
cipia common to all, and essential to the march of each. In 
some departments of study (Aristotle says) we get our view 
of principia or first principles by induction ; in others, by 
sensible perception; in others again, by habitual action in a 
certain way ; and by various other processes also. In each, 
it is important to look for first- principles in the way natur- 
ally appropriate to the matter before us ; for this is more than 
half of the whole work ; upon right first principles will mainly 
depend the value of our conclusions. For what concerns Ethics, 
Aristotle tells us that the first principles are acquired through a 
course of well directed habitual action ; and that they will be 
ttcquired easily, as well as certainly, if such a course be enforced 
on youth from the beginning. In the beginning of the Physica, 
he starts from that antithesis, so often found in his wiitings, 
between what is more knowable to us, and what is more knowable 
absolutely or by nature. The natural march of knowledge is to 
ascend from the first of these two termini (particulars of sense) 
upward to the second or opposite* — and thou to descend down- 
ward by demonstration or deduction. The fact of motion ]ie 

♦ See also Aristot. Metaphys. Z. p. 102^), b. 1-14. 



ARISTOTLE'S FIRST PHILOSOPHY. 43 

proves (against Melissus and Parmenides) by an express appeal to 
induction, as sufficient and conclusive evidence. In physical 
science (he says), the final appeal must be to the things and facts 
perceived by sense. In the treatise De Caelo, he lays it down that 
the principia must be homogeneous with the matters they be- 
long to : the principia of perceivable matters must be themselves 
perceivable ; those of eternal matters must be eternal ; those of 
perishable matters perishable. 

The treatises composing the Organon stand apart among 
Aristotle's works. In them he undertakes (for the first time in the 
history of mankind) the systematic study of significant proposi- 
tions enunciative of truth and falsehood. He analyzes their 
constituent elements ; he specifies the conditions determining 
the consistency or inconsistency of such propositions one with 
another ; he teaches to arrange the propositions in such ways as 
to detect and dismiss the inconsistent, keeping our hold of the con- 
sistent. Here the signification of terms and propositions is never 
out of sight : the facts and realities of nature are regarded as so 
signified. Now, all language becomes significant only through the 
convention of mankind, according to Aristotle's express declara- 
tion ; it is used by speakers to communicate what they mean, to 
hearers that understand them. "We see thus that in these trea- 
tises the subjective point of view is brought into the foreground ; 
the enunciation of what we see, remember, believe, disbelieve, 
doubt, anticipate, &c. It is not meant that the objective point of 
view is eliminated, but that it is taken in implication with, and 
in dependence upon, the subjective. Neither the one nor the 
other is dropped or hidden. It is under this double and conjoint 
point of view that Aristotle, in the Organon, presents to us, not 
only the processes of demonstration and confutation, but also the 
fundamental principia or axioms thereof ; which axioms in the 
Analytica Posteriora (as we have already seen) he expressly de- 
clares to originate from the data of sense, and to be raised and 
generalized by induction. 

Such is the way that Aristotle represents the fundamental 
principles of syllogistic demonstration, when he deals with them 
as portions of logic. But we also find him dealing with them as 
portions of Ontology or First Philosophy (this being his manner 
of characterizing his own treatise, now commonly known as the 
Metaphysica). To that science he decides, after some preliminary 
debate, that the task of formulating and defending the axioms 
belongs, because the application of these axioms is quite universal, 
for all grades and varieties of Entia. Ontology treats of Ens in 
its largest sense, with all its properties quatenus Ens, including 
Unum, Multa, Idem, Diversum, Posterius, Prius, Genus, Species, 
Totum, Partes, &c. Now, Ontology is with Aristotle a purely 
objective science ; that is, a science wherein the subjective is 
dropt out of sight, and no account taken of it, — or wherein (to 
state the same fact in the language of relativity) the believing and 
reasoning subject is supposed constant. Ontology is the most 



*4 APPENDIX— ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

comprehensive among all tlie objective sciences. Each, of these 
sciences singles out a certain portion of it for special study. In 
treating the logical axioms as portions of Ontology, Aristotle 
undertakes to show their objective value ; and this purpose, while 
it carries him away from the point of view that we remarked as 
prevailing in the Organon, at the same time brings him into con- 
flict with various theories, all of them in his time more or less 
current. Several philosophers — Heracleitus, Anaxagoras, Demo- 
critus, Protagoras, had propounded theories which Aristotle here 
impugns. We do not mean that these philosophers expressly 
denied his fundamental axioms (which they probably never dis- 
tinctly stated to themselves, and which Aristotle was the first to 
formulate), but their theories were to a certain extent inconsistent 
with these axioms, and were regarded by Aristotle as wholly in- 
consistent. 

The two axioms announced in the Metaphysica, and vindicated 
by Aristotle, are — 

1. The Maxim of Contradiction — It is impossible for the same 
thing to be and not to be ; It is impossible for the same to belong 
and not to belong to the same, at the same time and in the same 
sense. This^is the statement of the Maxim as a formula of Ont- 
ology. Announced as a formula of Logic, it would stand thus — 
The same proposition cannot be both true and false at the same 
time ; You cannot both believe and disbeheve the same proposition 
at the same time ; You cannot believe, at the same time, proposi- 
tions contrary or contradictory. These last-mentioned formulae 
are the logical ways of stating the axiom. They present it in 
reference to the believing or disbelieving (affirming or denying) 
Subject, distinctly brought to view along with the matter believed; 
not exclusively in reference to the matter believed, to the omission 
of the believer. 

2. The Maxim of Excluded Middle — A given attribute either 
does belong, or does not belong to a subject {i.e., provided that it 
has any relation to the subject at all) ; there is no medium, no 
real condition intermediate between the two. This is the Onto- 
logical Formula ; and it will stand thus, when translated into Logic 
— Between a proposition and its contradictory opposite there is no 
tenable halting ground. If you disbelieve the one, you must pass 
at once to the belief of the other ; you cannot at the same time 
disbelieve the other. 

These two maxims thus teach — the first, that we cannot at the 
same time believe both a proposition and its contradictory opposite ; 
the second, that we cannot at the same time dishelieve them both.* 

* We have here discussed these two maxims chiefly in reference to 
Aristotle's manner of presenting them, and to the conceptions of his pre- 
decessors and contemporaries. An excellent view of the Maxims them- 
selves, in their true meaning and value, will be found in Mr. John Stuart 
Mill's Examination of the Philosophy of Sir Wm. Hamilton, chap. xxi. 
p. 462-479. 



MAXIM OF CONTRADICTION. 45 

Now, Heracleitus, in his theory (a theory propounded irnicli 
before the time of Protagoras and the persons called Sophists), 
denied all permanence or durability in nature, and recognized 
nothing except perpetual movement and change. He denied both 
durable substances and durable attributes ; he considered nothing 
to be lasting except the universal law or principle of change— the 
ever-renewed junction or co-existence of contraries, and the per- 
petual transition of one contrary into the other. This view of 
the facts of nature was adopted by several other physical philo- 
sophers besides.* Indeed it lay at the bottom of Plato's new 
coinage — Eational Types or Forms, at once universal and real. 
The maxim of Contradiction is intended by Aristotle to controvert 
Heracleitus, and to uphold durable substances with definite 
attributes. 

Again, the theory of Anaxagoras denied all simple bodies 
(excepting Nous) and all definite attributes. He held that every- 
thing was mingled with everything else, though there might be 
some one or other predominant constituent. In all the changes 
visible throughout nature, there was no generation of anything 
new, but only the coming into prominence of some constituent 
that had before been comparatively latent. According to this 
theory, you could neither wholly afiirm, nor wholly deny, any 
attribute of its subject. Both afiirmation and denial were untrue : 
the real relation between the two was something half-way between 
affirmation and denial. The maxim of Excluded Middle is main- 
tained by Aristotle as a doctrine in opposition to this theory of 
Anaxagoras. t 

Both the two above-mentioned theories are objective. A third, 
that of Protagoras — Homo Mensura — brings forward prominently 
the subjective, and is quite distinct from either. Aristotle does in- 
deed treat the Protagorean theory as substantially identical with 
that of Heracleitus, and as standing or falling therewith. This 
seems a mistake ; the theory of Protagoras is as much opjfbsed to 
Heracleitus as to Aristotle. 

We have now to see how Aristotle sustains these two Axioms 
(which he calls * the firmest of all truths and the most assuredly 
known') against theories opposed to them. In the first place, 
he repeats here what he had declared in the Arialytica Posteriora 
— that they cannot be directly demonstrated, though they are 
themselves the principia of all demonstration. Some persons 
indeed thought that these Axioms were demonstrable ; but this 
is an error, proceeding (he says) from complete ignorance of 
analytical theory. How, then, are these axioms to be proved 
against Heracleitus ? Aristotle had told us in the Analytica that 
axioms were derived from particulars of sense by Induction, and 
apprehended or approved by the '^ovq. He does not repeat that 
observation here ; but he intimates that there is only one process 

* See Grote's Plato— voi: I., ch. 1, p. 28-38. 
t Grote— Plato, &c.—ch. 1, p. 49-57. 



46 APPENDIX — OPJGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

available for defending them, and that process amounts to an appeal 
to Induction. You can give no ontological reason in support of the 
axioms, except what will be condemned as a petitio principii ; 
you must take them in their logical aspect, as enunciated in signi- 
ficant propositions. You must require the Heracleitean adversary 
to answer some question affirmatively, in terms significant both 
to himself and to others, and in a proposition declaring his belief 
on the point. If he will not do this, you can hold no discussion 
with him : he might as well be deaf and dumb : he is no better 
than a plant (to use Aristotle's own comparison). If he does it, 
he has bound himself to something determinate : first, the signi- 
fication of the terms is a fact, excluding what is contrary or con- 
tradictory ; next, in declaring his belief, he at the same time 
declares that he does not believe in the contrary or contradictory, 
and is so understood by the hearers. We may grant what his 
theory affirms — that the subject of a proposition is continually 
under some change or movement ; yet the identity designated by 
its name is still maintained,* and many true predications respect- 
ing it remain true in spite of its partial change. The argument 
in defence of the maxim of Contradiction is, that it is a postulate 
implied in all the particular statements, as to matters of daily 
experience, that a man understands and acts upon when heard 
from his neighbours ; a postulate such that, if you deny it, no 
speech is either significant or trustworthy to inform and guide 
those who hear it. If the speaker both affirms and denies the 
same fact at once, no information is conveyed, nor can the hearer 
act upon the words. Thus, in the Acharnenses of Aristophanes, 
Dikaeopolis knocks at the door of Euripides, and inquires whether 
the poet is within ; Kephisophon, the attendant, answers — 
'Euripides is within and not within.' This answer is unintel- 
ligible ; Dikaeopolis cannot act upon it ; until Kephisophon ex- 
plains that 'not within' is intended metaphorically. Then, 
again, all the actions in detail of a man's life are founded upon 
his own belief of some facts and disbelief of other facts ; he goes 
to Megara, believing that the person whom he desires to see is at 
Megara, and at the same time disbelieving the contrary : he acts 
upon his belief, both as to what is good and what is not good, in 
the way of pursuit and avoidance. You may cite innumerable 
examples both of speech and action in the detail of life, which the 
Heracleitean must go through like other persons ; and when, if he 
proceeded upon his own theory, he could neither give nor receive 
information by speech, nor ground any action upon the beliefs 
which he declares to co-exist in his own mind. Accordingly, the 
Heracleitean Kratylus (so Aristotle says) renounced the use of 
affirmative speech, and simply pointed with his finger, f 

* This argument is given by Aristotle, Metaph. F. lOlO, a. 6-24, con- 
trasting chang:e Kara to Troadv and change Kara ro ttowu. 

t Aristot. Metaph. P. 1010, a. 13. Compare Plato Theajtet. p. 179-180, 
about the aversion of the Heracleiteans for clear issues and propo- 
sitions. 



MA^XIM OF EXCLUDED MIDDLE. 47 

The maxim of Contradiction is thus seen to be only the general 
expression of a postulate implied in all such particular speeches as 
communicate real information. It is proved by a very copious 
and diversified Induction, from matters of experience familiar to 
every individual person. It is not less true in regard to proposi- 
tions affirming changes, motions, or events, than in regard to 
those declaring durable states or attributes. 

In the long pleading of Aristotle on behalf of the maxim of 
Contradiction against the Heracleiteans, the portion of it that- 
appeals to Induction is the really forcible portion : conforming as 
it does to vv^hat he had laid down in the Analytica Posteriora 
about the inductive origin of the principia of demonstration. He 
employs, however, besides, several other dialectical arguments, 
built, more or less, upon theories of his own, and therefore not 
likely to weigh much with an Heracleitean theorist ; who — argu- 
ing as he did that (because neither subject nor predicate were ever 
unchanged or stable for two moments together) no true proposi- 
tion could be framed but was at the same time false, and that 
contraries were in perpetual co- existence, — could not by any 
general reasoning be involved in greater contradiction and incon- 
sistency than he at once openly proclaimed. * It can only be shown 
that such a doctrine cannot be reconciled vnth the necessities of 
daily speech, as practised by himself, as w^ell as by others. We 
read indeed one ingenious argument whe**eby Aristotle adopts this 
belief in the co-existence of Contraries, but explains it in a manner 
of his own, through his much employed distinction between poten- 
tial and actual existence. Two contraries cannot co-exist (he says) 
in actuality : but they both may and do co-exist, in different senses 
— one or both of them being potential. This, however, is a theory 
totally different from that of Heracleitus : coincident only in words 
and in seeming. It does indeed eliminate the contradiction : but 
that very contradiction formed the characteristic feature and key- 
stone of the Heracleitean theory. The case against this last theory 
is, that it is at variance with psychological facts, by incorrectly 
assuming the co- existence of contradictory beliefs in the mind : and 
that it conflicts both wdth postulates implied in the daily colloquy 
of detail between man and man, and with the volitional preferences 
that determine individual action. All of these are founded on a 
belief in the regular sequence of our sensations, and in the at 
least temporary durability of combined potential aggregates of 
sensations, which we enunciate in the language of definite attributes 
belonging to definite substances. This language, the common 

* This is stated by Aristotle himself (Metaph. r. 1011 a. 15) ol d' Iv 
T(^ \6ytt) T7]v i3iav fxovov Z,r]TovvTet, ciSvvarov K^rouffiv' IvavTia yap aiTrelv 
dktoixnv, ev9vQ tvavria Xkyovreg. He here indeed applies this obser- 
vation immediately to the Protagoreans, against whom it does not tell — 
instead of the Heracleiteans, against whom it does tell. Indeed, the 
whole of the reasoning in this part of the Metaphysica, is directed indis- 
criminately and in the same words against Protagoreans and Hera- 
cleiteans 



48 APPENDIX — OliTGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

medium of comm.iinication among non-theorizing men, is accepted 
as a basis, and is generalized and regularized, in the logical theories 
of Aristotle. 

The doctrine here mentioned is vindicated by Aristotle, not only 
against Heracleitus, by asserting the Maxim of Contradiction, 
but also against Anaxagoras, by asserting the Maxim of Excluded 
Middle. Here we have the second principium of demonstration, 
which, if it required to be defended at all, can only be defended 
(like the first) by a process of Induction. Aristotle adduces several 
arguments in support of it, some of which involve an appeal to 
induction, though not broadly or openly avowed ; but others of 
them assume what adversaries, and Anaxagoras especially, were 
not likely to grant. We must remember that both Anaxagoras 
and Heracleitus propounded their theories as portions of physical 
philosophy or of Ontology ; and that in their time no such logical 
principles and distinctions as those that Aristotle lays down in 
the Organon, had yet been made knov/n or pressed upon their 
attention. Now, Aristotle, while professing to defend these 
Axioms as data of Ontology, forgets that they deal with the logical 
aspect of Ontology, as formulated in methodical propositions. 
His view of the Axioms cannot be j)roperly appreciated without 
a classification of propositions, such as neither Heracleitus nor 
Anaxagoras found existing or originated for themselves. Aristotle 
has taught us — what Heracleitus and Anaxagoras had not been 
taught — to distinguish separate propositions as universal, par- 
ticular and singular; and to distinguish pairs of propositions as con- 
trary, sub-contrary, and contradictory. To take the simplest case, 
that of a singular proposition, in regard to which the distinction 
between contrary and contradictory has no application — such as 
the answer (cited above) of Kephisophon about Euripides. Here 
Aristotle would justly contend that the two propositions — • 
Euripides is luitJiin — Euripides is 7iot loitliin — could not be either 
both of them true, or both of them false : that is, that we could 
neither believe both, nor disbelieve both. If Kephisophon had 
answered, Euripides is neither within, nor not within, Dikaeopolis 
would have found himself as much at a loss with the two nega- 
tives as he was with the two affirmatives. In regard to singular 
propositions, neither the doctrine of Heracleitus (to believe both 
affirmation and negation) nor that of Anaxagoras (to disbelieve 
both) is admissible. But when in place of singular propositions, 
we take either universal or particular propositions, the rule to 
follow is no longer so simple and peremptory. The universal 
affirmative and tlie universal negative are contrary ; the particular 
affirmative and the particular negative are sub-contrary ; the uni- 
versal affirmative and the particular negative, or the universal 
negative and the particular affirmative, are contradictor j/. It is 
now noted in all manuals of Logic, that of two conti-ary proposi- 
tions, both cannot be true, but both may be false ; that of two 
sub-contraries, both may be true, but both cannot be false ; and 
that, of two contradictories, one must be true and the other false. 



THE SCHOOLMEN.— DESCAKTES. 49 

The Schoolmen. In tlie mediaeval period the question as to 
tlie Origin of Knowledge was. thrown into the shade by the ques- 
tion as to the nature, and mode of existence, of Universals. Never- 
theless, the different sides were each supported. On the one hand, 
the extreme experience-hypothesis was reduced to the formula 
often quoted since, Nihil est in intelledu quod non prius fuerit in 
sensu ; on the other, we can see by the argument of Aquinas 
against the theory of knowledge per species — omnium inteUigi- 
hilium rationes, animce naturaliter inditas, that some did not shrink 
from the extreme statement of the opposed view. 

It was at the close of the scholastic period, when the question 
of the universals was considered as settled against Eealism (hence- 
forth driven to assume masked forms) and their subjective cha- 
racter, whether in the sense of Nominalism or Gonceptualism, was 
held to be established, that the problem of the Origin of such 
general ideas before or in experience, started into full importance. 
During the whole course of modem thought it has held a first 
place among philosophical questions. 

Descahtes heads the modern movement in philosophy, and in 
him we must look for the terms wherein the question was anew 
propounded. First, however, it is weU, even if it were not in his 
case necessary, to indicate shortly his general philosophical position. 

1. Proceeding on the analogy of mathematics, he began by 
seeking a principle, or principles, of indubitable certainty, whereon 
to rear a universal system of knowledge unimpeachable at every 
point: — There is, he declared, not a single thing that I am not 
able to doubt or call in question, save the fact of my own 
doubting. But doubting is thinking, and in thinking is implied 
being or existing : I am, I exist, is, therefore, a proposition neces- 
sarily true every time I pronounce or conceive it ; Oogito ergo sum 
or Ego sum res cogitans is to me the one thing absolutely and for 
ever certain. And not only do I thus know that I am, but, at the 
same time, tvhat I am — a thinhing being. Although as yet nothing 
more, this I know with perfect clearness and distinctness, 

2. Next he sought how to pass beyond this primal certainty — 
the simple consciousness of self as a thinking being : — I find in 
me an idea of perfection, or of an all-perfect being called God. 
Like everything else, such an idea must have its cause, for I appre- 
hend, again with perfect clearness and distinctness, that, out of 
nothing, nothing can come. Now, as every cause must involve at 
least as much reality as there is in the effect, an imperfect being 
like myself cannot be the cause of such an idea of perfection. 
Wherefore it must be derived from a higher source, from such an 
aU-powerful and perfect being as it portends, who has stamped it 
as his mark upon my mind : not to say that already in the very 
idea of such a perfect being the attribute of existence is implied 
as necessary to his perfection. Besides self, therefore, I now 
know that God exists, and that he must be the real cause of my 
own existence. 

3. In the Veracity of God, in this way proved to exist, he now 



60 APPENDIX — OKIGIII OF KNOWLEDGE. 

found a guarantee of tlie existence of other beings, and of a 
material universe : — "Formerly, no mere thought of mine {sufficed 
to prove the existence of other beings or external things ; for any- 
thing I knew, I dreamed, or was the victim of a constant deception. 
But now that I know an all-perfect God to exist, I can be certain 
that everything is as he has constituted me to apprehend it, when, 
that is to say, the apprehension is perfectly clear and distinct. 
Thus, clearly and distinctly apprehending Bodies to be real ex- 
ternal substances, t.e., independent existences with real attributes 
of Figure, Size, and Motion, modes of one imiversal and insepar- 
able property — Extension, I can be sure that they are such. 
Qualities of colour, sound, heat, &c., on the other hand, I can be 
equally sure do not, as such, belong to the extended objects, 
because, when clearly and distinctly apprehended, they are seen 
to be only varieties of motion in these. 

4. The whole nature of Mind being thus understood, from the 
beginning, as expressed by the one attribute Thought (construed, 
however, as Thinking Substance), and the whole nature of Body, 
at the end, as summed up in the one attribute Extension [Extended 
Substance), he found in the union of Mind and Body in man— in 
man only, for he regarded the lower animals as mere automata — 
an explanation of all such phenomena of appetite, bodily feeling, 
and sensation (colour, sound, &c., just alluded to) as can be re- 
ferred neither to Mind nor to Body, taken simply and apart. 

Such are the main positions of Descartes. His doctrine of 
Intuition, in so far as it is developed, may now be presented in 
the following statements : — 

1. His general method, styled Deduction, whether used in 
rearing the whole edifice of philosophy or applied to special prob- 
lems, requires the positing of certain indemonstrable and self- 
evident truths, in regard to which he himself employs the term 
Intuition, 

2. First among such intuitive principles, and apprehended with 
a clearness and distinctness, to the level of which every other truth 
should be raised, is the certainty of Cogito ergo sum. Another, 
which stands him in even better stead, is Ex nihilo nihil fit. Still 
other examples are : What is done cannot be undone ; It is im- 
possible that the same thing can at once be and not be. Such 
truths are ' eternal,' although in some men they may be obscured 
by prejudice. 

3. Amongst Ideas he distinguishes (1) Innate, (2) Adventitious, 
(3) Factitious or Imaginary. The Innate, e.g., the idea of self as 
existent, of God, &c., are so named because they neither come 
adventitiously by way of sense, nor have the character of volun- 
tary products or fictions of the mind. The idea of God he describes 
as like ^ the workman's mark left imprinted on his work.' But, 
at other times, he argues, like many of his successors, for little 
more than innate faculties or modes of thinking, instead of 
thoughts ; pre-dispositions to conceive, instead of ready-made 

eptions. 



ARNAULD. 51 

4» In the Knowhdge of an object by sense-perception, there is 
more than a mere passive impression. What is real and constant in 
any object, as a piece of wax, under all conditions of sensible change 
—that it is a Substance, with attributes of Extension, Mobility, 
&c. — is perceived only intellectually, by direct meiital insjjection or 
intuition^ To know such attributes implies the conceiving of an 
infinite possibility of variations of each, something quite beyond 
the scope of Sense, or of Imagination which waits on sense. 

Before passing to Locke — the next great name in the general 
history of Intuition, it is necessary to take some account of others 
of his predecessors. 

In the Cartesian school itself, as in Malebranche, the discus- 
sion of the question was too much complicated with the special 
difficulty of finding a theory of perception or knowledge to 
bridge the chasm fixed by Descartes between mind and matter, 
to permit of its being followed out here. But Am^auld in the 
Fort Royal Logic, Chapter I., has a short and simple statement, 
which, as it must have been known to Locke, may be briefly 
noticed, 

1. As to the nature of Ideas, he emphasizes the same dis- 
tinction between Image and Idea, Imagination and Pure Intel- 
lection or Conception, made by Descartes. Things can be clearly 
and distinctly conceived, whereof there is no adequate imagination, 
e.g., a chiliogon; and others, of which there is no imagination 
possible at all, e.g.. Thought, Affirmation, God. This remembered, 
no more exact account can be given of what an Idea is, there 
being nothing more clear and simple to explain it by : ' It is 
everything that is in our mind when we can say with truth that 
we can conceive a thing, in whatsoever way it may be conceived.' 

2. As to the Origin of Ideas, he contests the opinion of ' a 
philosopher of repute ' (Gassendi), that all Imowledge begins from 
sense, the rest being an affair of Composition, or Amplification 
and Diminution, or Accommodation and Analogy. [Gassendi, the 
contemporary and rival of Descartes, rejected the Innate theory 
most strenuously, and with an explicitness justifying the inference 
that, apart from Descartes' influence, it was a commonplace in the 
philosophy of the time : Locke's relation to him has often been 
remarked.] To this, Arnauld, in substance, objects, (1) that it is 
not true at all of certain ideas, and (2) that it is not properly true 
of any. First, The simple ideas of Being and Thought (involved 
in the proposition Cogito ergo sum) never entered by any sense, 
and are not compounded from sensible images ; and the same 
is true of the idea of God : the mind has the faculty of forming 
such ideas for itself, and they cannot, without manifest absurdity, 
be referred to sense. In the next place, all that the impression 
on the sense effects, when it is this that does happen to arouse the 
mind, is to give the mind an ' occasion ' to form one idea rather 
than another ; and the idea has very rarely any resemblance to 
what takes place in the sense and in the brain. 

In England, views in strong antithesis to Lccke, were ad- 



52 APPENDIX — OKIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE, 

vanced by Cudwortli, founding not upon Descartes, but upon 
tlie ancients ; and, at a still earlier date (even than Descartes), 
by Lord Herbert of Cherbury. 

Cud worth's views, as explicitly set forth in the treatise on 
Eternal and Immutable Morality , were kept back from publication 
until after Locke's death. It will suffice, therefore, simply to 
remark (1) that (independently of Cartesian influence) he dis- 
tinguishes between Sense and Fancy on the one hand and Intel- 
lection or the Innate Cognoscitive Power of the Soul on the other; 
(2) that he defines this power as a faculty the mind has of raising 
from, within itself Intelligible Ideas and Conceptions of things, 
Intelligible Eeasons of things fRationesJ, &c. — e.g., Verity, 
Falsity, Cause, Effect, Genus, Species, Nullity, Contingency, 
Impossibility, Justice, Duty, * Nothing can be and not be at the 
same time ' (both as proposition and in every one of its words), 
&c. ; (3) that he understands by knowledge of particular things 
the bringing and comprehending of them under such Bafiones, 
and finds that ' scientific knowledge is best acquired by the soul's 
abstraction from the outward objects of sense, that it may the 
better attend to its own inward notions and ideas.' 

LoBD Heebert of Cherbury, in his book ' De Veritate' (1624) 
maintains the doctrine of Innate Ideas, under the name of Natural 
Instincts. Instinct is the first of our faculties brought into 
play, as Discursus (the understanding) is the last ; the senses, both 
external and internal, coming between them. It is the speciality 
of Instinct to work naturaliter (i.e. \Yithou.t Discursus J ; in the 
same way as minerals and vegetables have a faculty of self-pre- 
servation. JSfotitioe Communes (nearly equivalent to First Prin- 
ciples) are the product of Natural Instinct. They are sacred 
principles, against which it is unlawful to contend, and are guar- 
anteed by nature itself. If it be a common notion that Nature 
does nothing in vain, it is the same as if Nature herself spake — ' I 
do nothing in vain.' The truth of Common notions is perceived 
immediately, at first sight, so presenting a contrast to the slow and 
uncertain steps of the Discursive faculty. 

How, then, are those notions to be discovered ? It is by *our 
method,' which Herbert announces with great emphasis. There 
is no Philosophy or Religion so benighted but has its own special 
truth, mingled, it may be, with error ; and the pure metal can be 
extracted from the ore by ' our method.' The great criterion, as 
he never wearies of repeating, is universality : what is accepted by 
all men must be true, and can arise from no source except natural 
instinct. Universal consent is to be gathered from laws, religions, 
T^hilosophies, and books. Thus Eeligion is a common notion, for 
tkere is no nation or age without religion. The next thing to be 
considered is — what points are universally agreed to. This can 
be ascertained only by actually bringing together and sifting all 
religions. If this method (which is the only sure one) be con- 
sidered too laborious, Herbert points out the easier mode of self- 
examination ; if you examine your faculties, you will find God 



OHAEACTERS OF COMMON NOTIONS. 5^ 

and Virtue given as eternal and universal truths. Every truth is 
attested by some faculty, error by none. 

But in tbis introspection, tbe distinction must be borne in 
mind between Veritas rei, of which the principiuni is without 
the mind, and Veritas intelledus, which depends on the mind 
alone ; in fine, between propositions always and everywhere 
true, and propositions true only here and now. [This 
seems to be an approach, in everything except the name, 
to the criterion of necessity afterwards brought forward by 
Leibnitz.] The mind is not a tabula rasa, but rather a closed book, 
that opens on the presentation of objects. Until called forth by 
objects, the common notions are latent. It is folly to suppose 
that they are brought in with the objects ; they exist inde- 
pendently, being placed in us by nature. Nor is it any real diffi- 
culty that we do not understand how those notions are elicited ; 
as little do we understand* how touch, or taste, or smell is 
produced. 

All common notions are not independent of Discursus, but such 
as are may be determined by the following characters. (1) 
Priority, Instinct precedes Discursus, and as already observed, is 
in animals the faculty of self-preservation. In a house built with 
regularity, beauty of symmetry is observed by natural instinct, 
long before reason comes in with its estimate of the proportions of 
the parts. (2) Independence. When a common notion has been 
obtained by observation, it may be deducible from some prior 
truth. Thus * Man is an animal' depends for its truth upon the 
ultimate principle, that whatever affects our faculties in the same 
manner, is the same so far as we are concerned. Only the ultimate 
or underived truths are attributed to Natural Instinct. (3) Uni- 
versdlity (excepting idiots and madmen). (4) Certainty, Those 
principles possess the highest authority, and, if understood, cannot 
be denied. (5) Paramount Utility fNecessitasJ, Without common 
notions, there would be no principle of self-preservation : they are 
therefore essential to the existence of the race or the individual. 
(6) Immediacy, The truth of them is seen, nulla interposita mora, 

John Locke. Locke discusses the subject of innate specula- 
tive principles in his Essay on the Human Understanding, B. I., 
chaps. 2, 4. Innate principles are a class of notions stamped on 
the mind, which the soul brings into the world with it. Are there 
any such ? Certainly not, if it is shown how men may reach all 
the knowledge they have without such ideas. For it would be 
absurd to say that colour was innate in. a man that had eyes. 
Locke's refutation paves the way for the fundamental principle of 
his psychology, that all our knowledge and ideas arise from sense 
and reflection. 

1. The first argument for innate ideas is that certain principles 
are admitted as true universally. To this Locke answers, that the 
argument breaks dawn, (1) if any other way can be pointed out 
whereby this universal assent may be attained. (2) There are no 
principles universally admitted. Take two that have a high title 



54 APPENDIX— ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

to be considered innate : * whatever is, is,' and *it is impossible 
for the same thing to be and not to be.' These propositions are 
to a great part of mankind wholly unknown. They are unknown 
to children and idiots, and so they are not universally accepted. 
It would be a contradiction to say, that those propositions are im- 
printed on the mind, without the mind being conscious of them. 
That an idea is in the understanding, can only mean that it is 
understood. Hence, if there were innate ideas, they ought to be 
present in children and in idiots, as well as in others. 

2. To avoid those exceptions, the universality is affirmed with 
qualifications ; it is said that all men assent to those principles 
when they come to the use of reason. This can only mean either 
that the time of discovering those native inscriptions is when men 
come to the use of reason, or that reason assists in the discovery of 
them. (1) If reason discovered those principles, that would not 
prove them innate ; for by reason we discover many truths that 
are not innate. Eeason, as the faculty of deducing one truth 
from another, plainly cannot lead to innate principles. Eeason 
should no more be necessary to decipher those native inscriptions, 
than to make our eyes perceive visible objects. (2) The coming 
to the use of reason is not the time of first knowing those maxims. 
How many instances have we of the exercise of reason by children 
before they learn that * whatever is, is' ! Many illiterate people 
and savages, long after they come to the use of reason, are alto- 
gether ignorant of maxims so general. Those truths are never 
known before the use of reason, but may possibly be assented to 
some time after during a man's life ; and the same may be said of 
all other knowable truths. (3) If coming to the use of reason 
were the time of discovering the alleged innate notions, it would 
not prove them innate. For why should a notion be innate be- 
cause it is firsfc known when an entirely distinct faculty of the 
mind begins to exert itself ? It would be as good an argument, 
(and as near the truth) to say that those maxims were first 
assented to when men came to the use of speech. 

3. Another form of the argument is, that as soon as the pro- 
positions are heard, and their terms understood, they are assented 
to. Maxims that the mind, without any teaching and at the 
very first proposal, assents to, are surely iimate. (1) But assent at 
first hearing is characteristic of a multitude of truths ; such as, 
* one and two are equal to three,' ' two bodies cannot be in the 
same place,' * white is not black,' * a square is not a circle,' &c. 
To every one of these, every man in his wits must assent at first 
hearing. And since no proposition can be innate, unless the 
ideas composing it be innate, then our ideas of colours, tastes, 
sounds, &c., will be innate. !N'or can it be said that those pro- 
positions about concrete objects are drawn as consequences from 
the more general innate propositions, since the concrete judgments 
are known long before the abstract form. (2) Moreover, the 
argument of assent at first hearing supposes that those maxims 
may be unknown till proposed. For if they were ingrained in 



OBJECTIONS TO INNATE IDEAS. 65 

the mind, why need they be proposed in order to gain assent ? 
Does proposing make them clearer ? Then the teaching of men 
is better than the impression of nature, an opinion not favourable 
to the authority of innate truths. (3) It is sometimes said that 
the mind has an implicit knowledge of those principles, but not 
an explicit, before the first hearing. The only mea*ning that can 
be assigned to implicit or virtual knowledge, is that the mind is 
capable of knowing those principles. This is equally true of all 
knowledge, whether innate or not. (4) The argument of assent 
on first hearing is on the false supposition of no preceding teach- 
ing. Now, the words, and the meanings of the words, expressing 
the innate ideas, have been learned. And not only so, but the 
ideas that enter into the propositions are also acquired. If, then, 
we take out of a proposition the ideas in it and the words, what 
remains innate ? A child assents to the proposition, * an apple is 
not fire,' before it understands the terms of the maxim, ' it is 
impossible for the same thing to be and not to be,' and conse- 
quently before it can assent to the more general proposition. In 
conclusion Locke sums up : if there were innate ideas, they Avould 
be found in all men ; there are no ideas found in all men, hence 
there are no innate ideas. He adds some further considerations 
by way of supporting this conclusion. 

4. Those maxims are not the first known, for children do not 
know them. How explain such ignorance of notions, imprinted 
on the mind in indelible characters, to be the foundation of all 
acquired knowledge ? Children distinguish between the nurse 
and the cat, without the aid of the maxim, that the same thing 
cannot be and not be — for that is a maxim wholly unknown to 
them. If children brought any truths into the world with them, 
such truths ought to appear early, whereas, being made up of 
abstract terms, they appear late. 

5. Innate ideas appear least where what is innate shows itself 
clearest. Children, savages, illiterate people, being the least cor- 
rupted by custom or borrowed opinions, ought to exhibit those 
innate notions — the endowments of nature — with purity and dis- 
tinctness. But those are the very persons most destitute of 
universal principles of knowledge. General maxims are best 
known in the schools and academies, where they help debate, but 
do little to advance knowledge. 

6. In chap. 4, Locke examines some alleged innate ideas. As 
a proposition is made up of ideas, the doctrine of innate maxims 
will be decisively refuted, if it be shown that there are no innate 
ideas. Thus, in the maxim, ' it is impossible for the same thing 
to be and not to be,' Locke asks whether the notions of impossi- 
bility and identity be innate. He illustrates the difficulties in- 
volved in the conception of identity. Is a man, made as he is of 
body and soul, the same man when his body is changed ? Were 
Euphorbus and Pythagoras, who had the same soul, the same 
man, though they lived ages asunder ? And was the cock, that 
shared the soul with them, the same also ? In what sense shall 



56 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

we be tlie same men, when raised at the resurrection, that we are 
now ? The notion of identity is far from being clear or distinct ; 
can it then be the subject of undoubted and innate truth ? Again 
take the maxim, * the whole is bigger than a part.' This has a 
fair title to be considered innate. Eut whole and part have no 
meaning, except as applied to number and extension. If the 
maxim be innate, number and extension must also be innate. 
[Locke stopped here, thinking the point too clear for argument. 
But Kant afterwards adopted the paradox, and upheld the a priori 
character of Space as the corner-stone of his metaphysical con- 
struction.] In like manner, Locke examines whether the ideas of 
Worship 2in.^ God are innate. In respect of the idea of God, he 
argues the subject at great length, applying most of . the con- 
siderations that tell against innate ideas generaljy. He also dis- 
cusses whether Substance be an innate idea. This idea, he observes, 
we have neither by sensation nor by reflection, and nature might 
with advantage have given it to us. Eor substance is a most 
confused notion, and is only a something of which we have no dis- 
tinct positive idea, but which we take to be the substratum of our 
ideas. 

Shaftesbuby, in England, attempted to turn the edge of 
Locke's objections by declaring (but before Locke, the same had 
been affirmed) that all that was contended for was better expressed 
by the words Connate or Connatural than by the word innate : it 
was true the mind had no knowledge antecedent to experience, 
but it was so constituted or predisposed as inevitably to develop, 
'with experience, ideas and truths not explained thereby. 

In Germany, Leibnitz set up an elaborate defence of the In- 
nate Theory, and is commonly represented as having made a dis- 
tinct advance in the discussion of the question by the exceptions 
he took to the criticism of Locke. These"' are reducible to two. 
(1) He charges Locke vd.th neglecting the difference between 
mere truths of fact or positive truths that may be arrived at by way 
of Inductive Experience, and necessary truths^ or truths of demon- 
stration^ not to be proved except from principles implanted in the 
mind. (2) He charges Locke farther, with not seeing that innate 
knowledge is saved on simply making the unavoidable assumption 
that the intellect and its faculties are there from the first : ' the 
mind is innate to itself :' ' nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in 
sensu, nisi ipse intellectus.' His detailed objections are to be found 
in his posthumous work, Nouveaux Essaissur Ventendement humain. 

A passage in a letter of Leibnitz's to a friend, gives a good idea 
of the position he took up against Locke. He there says : ' In 
Locke there are various particular truths not badly set forth ; but 
on the main point he is far from being right, and he has not 
caught the nature of the Mind and of Truth. If he had properly 
considered the difference between necessary truths, i.e. those which 
are known by Demonstration, and the truths that we arrive at to 
H certain degree by Induction, he would have seen that necessary 
truths can be proved only from principles implanted in the mind 



NECESSAEY TRUTHS AND TRUTHS OF FACT. 57 

— ^the so-caUed innate ideas ; because the senses teH indeed wliat 
happens, but not what necessarily happens. He has also failed to 
observe that the notions of the Existent, of Substance, Identity, 
the True and Good, are innate to our mind for the reason that it 
is innate to itself, and within itself comprehends them all. Mhil 
est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensn, nisi ipse 'intellectusJ^ 
The Nouveaux Essais is a dialogue, continued through four books, 
corresponding to the books of Locke's essay, between Theophilus 
(Leibnitz himself J and Philalethes, a disciple of Locke. In Book 
I. , Theophilus, after announcing that he has taken a new step in 
philosophy, and reached a point of view from which he can recon- 
cile the discrepant views of former thinkers, declares that he goes 
beyond Descartes in accepting an innate idea of God; for rather all 
our thoughts and actions may be said to come from the depths of the 
soul itself without possibility of their being given by the senses. 
He will not, however, go into the demonstration of that at present, 
but content himself with making clear, on the common system, 
that there are ideas and principles that do not come from the 
senses, but are found within the mind, unformed by us, although 
the senses give us occasion to apprehend them. Locke, with all 
his power, failed to see the difference between necessary truthSy 
whose source is in the understanding, and truths of fact drawn 
from sense, experience, and confused perceptions. The certitude 
of innate principles (such as, Every thing that is, is ; It is impos- 
sible that a thing should be and not be at the same time) is not to 
be based on the fact of universal consent, which can only be an 
index to, and never a demonstration of, them : it comes only from 
what is in us. Even though unknown, they are not therefore not 
innate, for they are recognized- as soon as understood. In the 
mind there is always an infinity of cognitions that are not consci- 
ously apprehended ; and so the fact of their not being always appre- 
hended makes nothing against the existence of (1) the pure ideas 
(opposed to the phantasms of sense) and (2) necessary truths of rea- 
son (in contrast to truths of fact) asserted to be graven on the mind. 
That the necessary truths of Arithmetic and Geometry exist thus 
virtually in the mind appears from the established possibility of 
drawing them forth out of a whoUy untutored mind. But, in fine, 
the position to stand by is the difference that there is between neces- 
sary and eternal truths and mere truths of experience. * The mind 
is able to know the one and the other, but of the first it is the 
source ; and whatever number of particular experiences there may 
be of a universal truth, there can be no perpetual assurance of it, 
except its necessity is known by reason.' Elsewhere he mentions 
as things that the senses cannot give; * Substance, the One, the 
Same, Cause, Perception, Reasoning ;' but otherwise merely re- 
peats in different language statements like the above. 

When Philalethes suggests that the ready consent of the mind 
to certain truths is sufficiently explained by the general faculty of 
knowing, Theojjhilus replies as follows : * Very true ; but it is 
this particular relation of the human mind to these truths that 



58 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

renders the exercise of tlie faculty easy and natural with respect 
to them, and causes them to be called innate. It is no naked 
faculty, consisting in the mere possibility of understanding them : 
there is a disposition, an aptitude, a preformation, determining 
our mind and making it possible that they should be drawn forth 
from it. Just as there is a difference between the figures given to 
stone or marble indifferently, and those that its veins mark out 
already or are disposed to mark out if the workman takes advan- 
tage of them.' Farther on, to the objection that there is a diffi- 
culty in conceiving a truth to be in the mind, if the mind has 
never thought of it, he adds : ' It is as if one said that there is 
difficulty in conceiving veins to be in the marble before they are 
discovered.' In these sentences Leibnitz's theory is nearly com- 
pleted. 

After Leibnitz has next to be noticed Kant ; butjiis contribu- 
tion to the history of the present question, as before in the case of 
Descartes, cannot be viewed apart from his general philosophical 
position. Although his whole system, on the speculative side 
at least, may be described as a theory of the Origin of Know- 
ledge, it cannot be properly understood without some preliminary 
reference to other lines of thought. 

1. Kant found himself unable to subscribe to the metaphysical 
dogmatism of the school of Wolff* (joining on to Leibnitz) that pre- 
sumed to settle everything without any question of the mind's 
ability to pronounce at once and finally. This on the one hand : 
on the other he was startled by the scepticism of Hume (joining on 
through Berkeley to Locke) with its summary assertion of the 
impotence of human thought. As between the two, he conceived 
the idea of instituting a critical inquiry into the foundations and 
limits of the mind's faculty of knowledge ;' m. his famous work, ' The 
Critique of the Pure Eeason' (1781). 

2. As here implied in the word ' pure ' used of Eeason, or the 
general faculty of knowing, he contended for the inherence in the 
mind, before all experience, of certain principles of knowledge, 
which he called a priori ; and thus far was at one with former sup- 
porters of Innate Notions. Farther, with Leibnitz in particular, he 
agreed in taking necessity and universality as the marks or criteria 
of cognitions never to be attained to or explained by experience. 
Cognitions universally and necessarily true, and these not merely 
analytic or verbal (where the predicate only sets forth the implica- 
tion of the subject), but synthetic or real (in which there is an 
extension of knowledge) he found, as he thought, existing in 
abundance : in Mathematics such, for instance, as 7 -{- 5 = 12; Two 
straight lines cannot enclose a space, &c. ; in Pure Physics, The 
quantity of matter in nature is constant, Action and Eeaction in 
nature are equal ; while the whole of traditional Metaphysics was 
made up of such. Criticism of the foundations and limits of 
human knowledge took with him, then, the special shape of an 
inquiry into the conditions of the possibility of synthetic cognitions a 
priori. 



FORMS OF INTUITION. 59 

3. In the peculiar solution that he gave of the old question of 
Innate Knowledge put into this new form, there can be traced the 
influence Hume had upon him from the opposite camp. Hume 
had meanwhile analyzed Causality into mere custom of sequence 
among the impressions of sense, and upon the untrustworthiness 
of such a purely subjective notion had based his general scep- 
ticism. Kant taking his stand upon the body of established 
mathematical truth (synthetic at the same time as necessary), re- 
jected the sceptical conclusion ; but accepting the subjective 
origin of the notion of Causality, proceeded to place all the 
native a prioriy or non-empirical elements of knowledge in certain 
subjective or mental ' Forms^ destined to enfold^ while requiring to he 
supplemented hy the 'Matter^ of Experience, 

4. The mind, therefore, in Kant's view, has no sort of know- 
ledge antecedent to and independent of experience, as many 
philosophers have more or less boldly asserted ; it has, before 
experience, nothing except the * forms ' as the moulds into which 
the empirical elements that come primarily by way of sense are 
made to run ; and unless this * matter' of experience is supplied, 
there is no knowledge of any kind possible. But when the ' mat- 
ter' is provided, and the * forms' are applied to their true and 
appropriate * matter' — there are, as will be seen, cases wherein 
this does, and others wherein it does not take place — the mind is 
then not bound down to its particular experiences, but can really 
conceive and utter universal and necessary (synthetic) truths that 
no mere experience could ever give. 

The detailed exposition of Kant's theory falls under three 
heads. 

I. — Transcendental Esthetic, The impressions of sense are (pas- 
sively) received as empirical * matter' into certain pure or a priori 
' forms,' distinguished by the special name of * Forms of Intuition.' 

1. The data of the internal sense (joy, pain, &c.) fall into, or 
are received as, a series or succession, in Time: the data of the 
external senses are received, directly, as lying outside of us and by 
the side of each other, in Space ; indirectly, in their influence upon 
our internal state, as a succession in Time, 

2. As forms. Space and Time are of non-empirical origin ; they 
cannot be thought away, as everything can that has been 
acquired. They are forms of intuition, in having nothing of the 
character of abstracted concepts, 

3. If they were not a priori^ there would bfe no foundation 
possible for the established (synthetic a priori) truths of Mathe- 
matics and Geometry resting upon the intuition of Space, nor 
for Arithmetic, which, consisting of the repetition or succession of 
units, rests upon the intuition of Time. 

4. How are we enabled actually to construct the pure science 
of Mathematics, made up of synthetic truths a priori, is thus 
to be explained. Because the subjective forms of space or 
Time are mixed up with all our sense-perceptions (intuitions), and 
only ^viQh. phenomena in Space and Time (not Things-in-themselves 



60 APPENDIX— ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

or noumena) are ever open to our intuitive apprehensioiS, we inay 
pronounce freely a priori in all that relates to determinations of 
Space and Time, provided it is understood of phenomena, consti- 
tuted by the very addition of these mental forms. 

II. — Transcendental Logic — Analytic, Phenomena (constituted 
out of the * matter' of sense as*^ ordered in the Forms of Intuition) 
themselves in turn become ' matter,' which the mind, as spon- 
taneously active, combines and orders in the process of Judgment, 
under certain * forms,' distinguished by the special name of ' Cate- 
gories of the Understanding.' 

1. These are twelve in number, and discoverable from the com- 
mon analysis of judgments in logic. 

a. Three categories of Quantity: Unity, Plurality, Unive?'- 
saZtY?/ (as involved in Singular, Particular, Universal judgments 
respectively). 

b. Three of Quality : Reality, Negation, Limitation (in Posi- 
tive, Negative, Infinite judgments). 

c. Three of Belatiois' : Substantiality y Causality, Community or 
Reci'procal action (in Categorical, Hypothetical, Disjunctive judg- 
ments). 

d. Three of Modality : Possibility, Existence, Necessity (in 
Problematic, Assertory, Apodeictic judgments). 

2. Until a synthesis of intuitions (perceptions) takes place 
under some one of these pure or a priori concepts, there is no 
Knowledge, or, in the proper meaning of the word. Experience. 
The fact of such a synthesis makes all the difference between the 
mere perception of a particular sequence in the subjective con- 
sciousness, e.g, my having the sense of weight in supporting a 
body, and the objective experience, true for all. The body is heavy. 

3. The reason, now, why we can farther say that no possible 
experience will not come under the Categories, as in saying that 
effects must have a cause— or, which is the same thing, why we are 
enabled to utter synthetic judgments a priori, objectively valid, re- 
garding nature — is this, that without the Categories (forms of the 
spontaneous activity of the pure ego J there cannot be any expe- 
rience at all; experience, actual or possible, is phenomena bound 
together in the Categories. 

4. But, if we can extend our knowledge beyond actual expe- 
rience because experience is constituted by the Categories of the 
Understanding, the extension is only to be to possible objects ©f 
experience, which are phenomena in Time and Space ; never to 
Things-in-themselves or Noumena, of which there can be no sen- 
sible (intuitive) apprehension. 

[Kant makes this apparent chiefly by the consideration, under 
the head of * Schematism of the pure concepts of the Understand- 
ing,' of the conditions under which sensible phenomena can be 
subsumed under the Categories. But we must here forego the ex- 
position of this, and of the system of * Principles of the pure un- 
derstanding ' or (synthetic d priori) Eules for the objective use 
of the Categories, that follows. These, including (1) * Axioms 



IDEAS -OF THE KEASOX. 61 

of ilntuition/ (2) ^ Anticipations of Perception,' (3) ^Analogies of 
Experience '—Amid all changes of phenomena, Substance abides 
the same. All change obeys the law of Cause and Effect, Substances 
CO -existing in space act and re-act upon each other; (4) * Postu- 
lates of Empirical Thought ' — are the d priori construction that 
the mind is able to make of a Pure Science, or Metaphysic, of 
Nature. 

III. — Transcendental Logic — Dialectic. Besides the Categories of 
the Understanding, there are certain other forms of the thinking 
faculty, according to which the mind seeks to bring its know- 
ledge to higher unities : these are distinguished by the special 
name of * Ideas of the Eeason ' [Eeason to be taken here in a nar- 
row sense as opposed to Sense and Understanding], 

1 . The Ideas of the Eeason are three in number : {a) The 
(psychological) idea of the Soul^ as a thinking substance, immate- 
rial, simple and indestructible ; (5) The (cosmological) idea of the 
World, as a system or connected whole of phenomena; (c) The 
(theological) idea of God, as supreme condition of the possibility 
of all things, the being of beings. 

2. These Ideas of the Eeason applied to our Cognitions have 
a true regulative function, being a constant spur towards bringing 
our relative intellectual experience to the higher unity ■ of the 
absolute or unconditioned : but they are not constitutive principles, 
giving any real advance of knowledge, for truly objective know- 
ledge is only of phenomena as possible objects of experience. 

3. Nevertheless, by a law of our mental nature, we cannot 
avoid ascribing an illusory objective reality to these Ideas, making 
thus a ' transcendent' application of the Categories to objects 
there can never be any possible experience of (' transcendent 
of experience' versus 'immanent to experience'): and by this 
* natural dialectic of the Eeason,' we become involved in a maze 
of deception or ' transcendental show,' as seen in the Paralogisms 
regarding the metaphysical nature of the soul, the Antinomies or 
contradictory and mutually destructive assertions regarding the 
universe, aud the sophistical arguments for the existence of God — 
that make up Metaphysics. 

(The acknowledged powerlessness of the Speculative Eeason to 
find conditions for the validity of the synthetic judgments a priori 
of Metaphysics — to prove theoretically the existence of the soul, 
God, &c., Kant overcame by setting forth Immortality, Free-will, 
and God, as postulates of the Practical Eeason or Moral Faculty ; 
and the Ideas of the Eeason then became of use in helping the 
mind to conceive assumptions that were morally necessary.) 

Besides rousing Kant in Germany to undertake his critical 
inquiries, the general philosophical scepticism of Hume, evoked in 
Scotland a protest of a different kind, in the helieving Common- 
sense doctrine of Eeid. But of Eeid's views there was a singular 
anticipation made by the Jesuit Pere Buffier in 1724, in an attempt 
to refute another and earlier sceptical doctrine, developed out of 
the fundamental principle of Cartesianism. 



62 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

Father Buffier. Buffier anticipated Keid, both in the 
doctrine of Common Sense, and in the easy way of bringing truths 
to it. He describes Common Sense as ' that disposition or quality 
which Nature has placed in all men, or evidently in the far greater 
number of them, in order to enable them all, when they have 
arrived at the age and use of reason, to form a common and 
uniform judgment with respect to objects different from the inter- 
nal sentiment of their own perception, and which judgment is not 
the consequence of any anterior principle.' With respect to at 
least some first principles, men in general are as good philosophers 
as Descartes or Locke, for all that they have to decide is a matter of 
fact, namely, whether they cannot help making a particular judg- 
ment. .But Bufiier does not exclude Philosophy altogether; on 
the contrary, he gives some marks or tests whereby the dictates 
of common sense may be scientifically ascertained. (1) First prin- 
ciples are so clear that, * if we attempt to defend or attack them, 
it cannot be done but by propositions which manifestly are neither 
more clear nor more certain. (2) They are so universally received 
amongst men, in all times and countries, and by all degrees of 
capacity, that those who attack them are, comparatively to the 
rest of mankind, manifestly less than one to a hundred, or even a 
thousand.' (3) However they may be discredited by speculation, 
all men, even such as disavow them, must act in their conduct as 
if they were true. 

The truths that Buffier considers to belong to common sense 
are scattered through his book on ' First Truths.' The basis of 
all knowledge is ' the interior sense we each of us have of our own 
existence, and what we feel within ourselves.' Every attempt to 
prove this truth only makes it darker. In like manner, the idea 
of unity (personality) is a first truth. Our identity follows from 
our unity or indivisibility. In opposition to Malebranche, who 
asserts that mind cannot act upon body, Buffier maintains as a 
first truth, that my soul produces motions in my body. 

Among first truths are included the following: — (1) 'There 
are other beings and other men in the world besides me. (2) There 
is in them something that is called truth, wisdom, prudence ; and 
this something is not merely arbitrary. (3) There is in me some- 
thing that I call intelligence or mind, and something which is not 
that intelligence or mind, and which is named body; so that each 
possesses properties difterent from the other. (4) What is generally 
said and thought by men in all ages and countries, is true. (5) 
All men have not combined to deceive and impose upon me. (6) 
All that I see, in which is found order, and a permanent, uniform, 
and constant order, must have an intelligence for its cause.' 

What may hold the place of first truths in the testimony of the 
senses ? Buffier' s answer shows great laxity in the selection of 
first truths. (1) 'They (the senses) always give a faithful report 
of things as they appear to them. (2) What appears to them is 
almost always conformable to the truth in matters proper for men 
in general to know, unless some rational cause of doubt presents 



REID— MEANING OF COMMON SENSE. 63 

itself, (3) It will be easy to discern when the evidence of the 
senses is doubtful, by the reflections we shall point out.' Another 
first truth is that a thing may be impossible although we see no 
contradiction in it. Again, the validity of testimony in certain 
cases, is a first truth ; there are circumstances wherein no rational 
man could reject the testimony of other men. Also the free 
agency of man is a first truth ; free will is * the disposition a man 
feels within himself, of his capacity to act or not to act, to choose 
or not to choose a thing, at the same moment.' 

Dr. Thomas Eeid. The word Sense, as used by Philosophers, 
from Locke to Hutcheson, has signified a means of furnishing our 
minds with ideas, without including judgment, which is the per- 
ception of agreement or disagreement of our ideas. But, in 
common language. Sense always implies judgment. Common 
Sense is the degree of judgment common to men that we 
can converse and transact business with, or call to account for 
their conduct. * To judge of First Principles requires no more 
than a sound mind free from prejudice, and a distinct conception 
of the question. The learned and the unlearned, the philosopher 
and the day-labourer, are upon a level, and will pass the same 
judgment, when they are not misled by some bias.' A man is not 
now moved by the subtle arguments of Zeno against motion, 
though, perhaps, he knows not how to answer them. 

Although First Principles are self-evident, and not to be proved 
by any arguments, still a certain kind of reasoning may be applied 
in their support. (1) To show that the principle rejected stands 
upon the same footing with others that are admitted. (2) As in 
Mathematics, the redudio ad ahsurdum may be employed. (3) 
The consent of ages and nations, of the learned and unlearned, 
ought to have great authority with regard to first principles, 
where every man is a competent judge. (4) Opinions that appear 
so early in the mind, that they cannot be the effect of education 
or of false reasoning, have a good claim to be considered as first 
principles. 

E-eid asks whether the decisions of Common Sense can be 
brought into a code such as all reasonable men shall acquiesce in. 
He acknowledges the difficulty of the task, and does not profess 
that his own enumeration is perfectly satisfactory. His classi- 
fication proceeds on the distinction between necessary and con- 
tingent truths. That a cone is the third part of a cylinder, of 
the same base and height, is a necessary truth. It does not 
depend upon the will and power of any being. That the Sun is 
the centre of the planetary system is a contingent truth; it 
depends on the power and will of the Being that made the 
planets. 

I. — Principles of Contingent Truth, (1). Everything that I 
am conscious of exists. The irresistible conviction we have of the 
reality of what we are conscious of, is not the effect of reasoning ; 
it is immediate and intuitive, and therefore a first principle. (2) 
The thoughts that I am conscious of, are the thoughts of a being 



64 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

that I call myself^ my mind, my person, (3) Those things did 
really happen that I distinctly remember. (4) Our own personal 
identity and continued existence, as far back as we remember 
anything distinctly. (5) Those things do really exist that we 
distinctly perceive by our senses, and are what we perceive them 
to be. [This is Dr. Eeid's theory of the external world elevated to 
the dignity of a first principle.] (6) We have some degree of 
power over our actions and the determinations of our will. The 
origin of our idea of power is not easily assigned. Power is not 
an object of sense or consciousness. "We see events as successive, 
but not the power whereby they are produced. We are conscious 
of the operations of our minds ; but power is not an operation 
of mind. It is, however, implied in every act of volition, and in 
all deliberation and resolution. Likewise, when we approve or 
disapprove, we believe that men have power to do or not to do. 
(7) The natural faculties, whereby we distinguish truth from 
error, are not fallacious. (8) Our fellow-men with whom we 
converse are possessed of life and intelligence. (9) Certain 
features of the countenance, sounds of the voice, and gestures of 
the body, indicate certain thoughts and dispositions of mind. 
The signification of those things we do not learn by experience, 
but by a kind of natural perception. Children, almost as soon as 
born, may be frightened by an angry or threatening tone of 
voice, (10) There is a certain regard due to human testimony in 
matters of fact, and even to human authority in matters of 
opinion. (11) There are many events depending on the will of 
man, possessing a self-evident probability, greater or less, 
according to circumstances. In men of sound mind, we expect a 
certain degree of regularity in their conduct. (12) In the phe- 
nomena of nature, what is to be, will probably be like what has 
been in similar circumstances. Hume has shown that this prin- 
ciple is not grounded on reason, and has not the intuitive evidence 
of mathematical axioms. 

II. — Principles of Necessary TriUh, In regard to those, Eeid 
thinks it enough to divide them into classes, and to mention some 
by way of specimen in each class. 

1. Grammatical Principles. (1) Every adjective in a sentence 
must belong to some substantive expressed or understood. (2) 
Every complete sentence must have a verb. 

2. Logical Principles. (1) Any contexture of words, that does 
not make a proposition, is neither true nor false. (2) Every pro- 
position is either true or false. (3) No proposition can be both 
true and false at the same time. (4) Peasoning in a circle proves 
nothing. (5) Whatever may be truly affirmed of a genus, may be 
truly affirmed of all its species, and of all the individuals belonging 
to that species. 

3. The Mathematical Axioms. 

4. The Principles of Taste. Setting aside the tastes acquired 
by habit and fashion, there is a natural taste, that is partly 
animal and partly rational. Eational taste is the pleasure of 



ENUMERATION OF FIEST PKINCIPLES. 65 

contemplating wliat is conceived as excellent in its kind. This 
taste may be true or false, according as it is founded on true 
or false judgment. If it may be true or false, it must have first 
principles. Natural taste is the pleasure or disgust arising from 
certain objects before we are capable of perceiving any excellence 
or defect in them. 

5. First Principles in Morals. (1) An unjust action has more 
demerit than an ungenerous one. (2) A generous action has 
more merit than a merely just one. (3) No man ought to be 
blamed for what it was not in his power to hinder. (4) We 
ought not to do to others what we should think unjust or unfair 
to be done to us in like circumstances. [By endeavouring to make 
the golden rule more precise, Beid has converted it into an iden- 
tical proposition.] 

6. Metaphysical Principles. (1) The qualities that we per- 
ceive by our senses must have a subject (which we call body), and 
the thoughts we are conscious of must have a subject (which we 
call mind). The distinction between sensible qualities, and the 
substance to which they belong, is not the invention of philo- 
sophers, but is found in the structure of all languages. (2) What- 
ever begins to exist must have a cause. (3) Design and intelli- 
gence in the cause may be inferred with certainty, from marks 
or signs of them in the effect. 

7. We may refer to some of the necessary truths regarding 
Matter. (1) All bodies must consist of parts. (2) Two bodies 
cannot occupy the same place at the same time. (3) The same 
body cannot be in different places at the same time. (4) A body 
cannot be moved from one place to another without passing 
through intermediate space. 

We may add also some of the First Principles connected with the 
Senses. (1) A certain sensation of touch suggests to the mind 
the conception of hardness, and creates the belief of its existence. 
(2) The notion of extension is suggested by feelings of touch, but 
is not given us by any sense. (3) It is by instinct we know the 
part of our body affected by particular pains. 

DxJGALD Stewart. The chief point wherein Stewart departs 
from Eeid in the treatment of the Fundamental Laws of Belief 
(as he prefers to call the dictates of Common Sense); is in regard 
to Mathematical demonstration. 

1. Mathematical Axioms, On this subject Stewart follows 
Locke in preference to Eeid. Locke observes that, although the 
axioms are appealed to in proof of particular cases, yet they are 
only verbal generalizations of what, in particular instances, has 
been already acknowledged as true. Also inany of the maxims 
are mere verbal propositions, explaining only the meaning of 
words. Stewart quotes Dr. Campbell to the effect that all axioms 
in Arithmetic and Geometry are identical propositions — reducible 
to the maxim ' wha.tever is, is.' That one and four make five 
means that five is the name of one added to four. To this doctrine 
Stewart adheres so far as Arithmetic is conderned. In Algebra 
23 



66 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE, 

and Arithmetic, ' All our investigations amount to nothing more, 
than to a comparison of different expressions of the same thing. 
But the axioms of Euclid are not definitions, they are universal 
propositions applicable to an infinite variety of instances. Eeid 
said that the axioms are necessary truths ; and so the conclusions 
drawn from them were necessary. But, as was observed by Locke, 
it is impossible to deduce from the axioms a single inference. The 
axioms cannot be compared with the first Principles of Natural 
Philosophy, such as the laws of motion, from which the subordi- 
nate truths of that science are derived. The principles of Mathe- 
matics are, not the axioms, but the definitions. ' Yet although 
nothing is deduced from the axioms, they are nevertheless im- 
plied and taken for granted in all our reasonings ; without them 
we could not advance a step.' [In a note Stewart observes that by 
the Axioms he does not mean all those prefixed to Euclid, which 
include the definition of parallel lines. He considers it a reproach 
to Mathematics that the so-called Axiom regarding parallel lines 
has not been made the subject of demonstration.] 

2. Mathematical Demonstration. Demonstrative evidence, the 
characteristic of mathematics, has arrested universal attention, but 
has not been satisfactorily explained. The true account of mathe- 
matical demonstration seems to be — that it flows from the defini- 
tions. In other sciences, the propositions we attempt to prove 
express facts real or supposed ; in mathematics, the propositions 
assert merely a connexion between certain suppositions and certain 
consequences. The whole object is to trace the consequences 
flowing from an assumed hypothesis. In the same manner, we 
might devise arbitrary definitions about moral or political ideas, 
and deduce from them a science as certain as geometry. The 
science of mechanics is an actual instance, ' in which, from arbi- 
trary hypotheses concerning physical laws, the consequences are 
traced which would follow, if such was really the order of nature.' 
In the same way, a code of law might consist of rules strictly 
deduced from certain principles, with much of the method and all 
the certainty of geometry. The reasoning of the mathematician 
is true only of his hypothetical circle; if applied to a figure de- 
scribed on paper, it would fail, because all the radii could not be 
proved to be exactly equal. The peculiar certainty of mathematics 
thus rests upon the definitions, which are hypotheses and not des- 
criptions of facts. 

Stewart considers that the certainty of arithmetic is likewise 
derived from hypotheses or definitions. That 2 -[- 2 = 4, and 
3 + 2 = 5, are definitions analogous to those in Euclid, and 
forming the material of all the complicated results in the science. 
But he objects to the theory of Leibnitz, that all mathema- 
tical truths are identical propositions. The plausibility of this 
theory arises from the fact, that the geometrical notions of 
equality and of coincidence are the same ; all the propositions 
ultimately resting upon an imaginary ai^plication of one triangle 
to aii other. As sujjcrimyoscd figures occupy the same space, it 



STEWART — INSTINCTIVE BELIEFS. 67 

was easy to slide into the belief that identity and equality were 
convertible terms. Hence it is said, all mathematical propositions 
are reducible to the form/ a = a. But this form does not truly 
render the meaning of the proposition, 2-1-2=4. 

3. The other Laws of Belief resemble the axioms of Geometry 
in two respects : 1st, they do not enlarge our knowledge ; and 
secondly, they are implied or involved in all our reasonings. 
Stewart advances two objections to the phrase — principles of 
common sense: it designates, as principles, laws of belief from 
which no inference can be deduced; and secondly, it refers the 
origin of these laws to common sense, a phraseology that he 
considers unfit for the logician, and unwarranted by ordinary 
usage. 

Stewart defends the alleged instinctive power of interpreting 
certain expressions of the countenance, certain gestures of the 
body, and certain tones of the voice. This had been resolved by 
Priestley into associated experiences : but, for the other opinion, 
Stewart offers two reasons: (1) Children understand the meaning 
of smiles and frowns long before they could remark the connexion 
between a passion and its expression. (2) "We are more affected 
by natural signs than by artificial ones. One is more affected by 
the facial expression of hatred than by the word hatred. 

Another instinct adduced by Stewart, is what he calls the law 
of Sympathetic Imitation, This is contrasted with the intentional 
imitation of a scholar ; it depends * on the mimical powers con- 
nected with our bodily frame.' If we see a man laughing or sad, 
we have a tendency to take on the expression of those states. So 
yawning is contagious. * Even when we conceive in solitude the 
expression of any passion, the effect of the conception is visible in 
our own appearance.' Also, we imitate instinctively the tones 
and accents of our companions. As we advance in years, this 
propensity to imitation grows weaker. 

SiK W. Hamilton. I. — Common Sense. All reasoning comes at 
last to principles that cannot be proved, but are the basis of all 
proof. Such primary facts rest upon consciousness. To ivhat 
extent, then, is consciousness an infallible authority ? What we 
are actually conscious of, it is impossible for scepticism to doubt ; 
but the dicta of consciousness, as evidence of facts beyond their 
own existence, may without self-contradiction be disputed. Thus, 
the reality of our perceptions of solidity and extension is beyond 
controversy ; but the reality of an external world, evidenced by 
these, may be doubted. Common Sense consists of all the original 
data of Consciousness. 

' The argument from Common Sense is one strictly philoso- 
phical and scientific' The decision is not refused to the judgment 
of philosophers and accorded to the verdict of the vulgar. The 
problem of philosophy, and a difficult one, is to discover the 
elementary feelings or beliefs. This task cannot be taken out of 
the hands of philosophers. Sometimes the purport of the doctrine 
of Common Sense has been misunderstood, and it has been 



68 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE, 

regarded as an appeal to * the undeveloped beliefs of the unre- 
flecting many.' Into this error fell Beattie, Oswald, and, in his 
earlier work, even Reid. But Hamilton alleges that Eeid improves 
in his subsequent works, and that his treatment of Casuality with 
reference to the criterion of necessity, shows that he did not con- 
template any uncritical appeal to Common Sense. 

The criteria of the principles of Common Sense are these : — 
1. Incomprehensibility [an inapt word for expressing that they are 
fundamental and not to be explained by reference to anything 
else]. 2. Simplicity [another name for the same fact]. 3. Neces^ 
sity, and Ahsolute Universality, 4. Certainty [what is both neces- 
sary and universal must be certain. Hence in reality the four 
criteria consist of (1) the defining attribute of the principles, 
namely, that they are ultimate principles, and (2) the usually 
assigned attributes — Necessity and Universality]. 

Hamilton assigns historically three epochs in the meaning of 
Necessity : — (1) In the Aristotelian epoch, it was chiefly, if not 
exclusively, objective. (2) By Leibnitz, it was considered prim- 
arily as subjective. (3) By Hamilton himself, Necessity is farther 
developed into the two forms, positive and negative necessity ; the 
application appears under the next head. 

II. — The Laiv of the Conditioned, Necessity may be the result 
either of a power fpositivej, or of an impotency f negative J of the 
mind. In Perception, I cannot but think that I, and something 
different from me, exist. Existence is thus a native cognition, for 
it is a condition of thinking that all that I am conscious of exists. 
Other positive notions are the Logical Principles, the intuitions of 
Space and Time, &c. But there are negative cognitions the result 
of an impotence of our faculties. Hence the Law of the Con- 
ditioned, which is expressed thus : — ' All that is conceivable in 
thought lies between two extremes, which, as contradictory of 
each other, cannot both be true, but of which, as mutual contra- 
dictories, one must.' Thus Space must be bounded or not bounded, 
but we are unable to conceive either alternative. We cannot con- 
ceive space as a whole, beyond which there is no further space. 
Neither can we conceive space as without limits. Let us imagine 
space never so large, we yet fall infinitely short of infinite space. 
But finite and infinite space are contradictories; therefore, although 
we are unable to conceive either alternative, one must be true and 
the other false. The conception of Time illustrates the same law. 
Starting from the present, we cannot think past time as bounded, 
as beginning to be. On the other hand, we cannot conceive time 
going backwards without end ; eternity is too big for our imagi- 
nation. Yet time had either a beginning or it had not. Thus 
* the conditioned or the thinkable lies between two extremes or 
poles ; and these extremes or poles are each of them unconditioned, 
each of them inconceivable, each of them exclusive or contradic- 
tory of the other.' 

The chief applications of the Law of the Conditioned are to the 
Principles of Causality and Substance. Take first Causality. 



HAMILTON'S LAW OF THE CONDITIONED. 69 

CausaHty is the law of tlie Conditioned applied to a tHng thouglit 
as existing in time. No object can be known unless thought as ex- 
istent ; and in time. Thinking the object, we cannot think it not to 
exist. This will be admitted of the present, but possibly denied of 
the past and future, under the belief that we can think annihilation 
or creation. But we cannot conceive an atom taken from the sum 
of existing objects. No more can we conceive creation. For what 
is creation ? * It is not the springing of nothing into something. 
Far from it : — it is conceived, and is by us conceivable, merely as 
the evolution of a new form of existence, by the fiat of the Deity.' 
"We are therefore unable to annihilate in thought any object ; we 
cannot conceive its absolute commencement. Given an object we 
know that as a phenomenon it began to be, but we must think it 
as existing previously in its elements. If then the object existed 
before in a different form, this is only to say that it had causes. 
Thus the law of the conditioned shows us that every phenomenon 
must have some causes, but what those causes are must be learned 
from experience. Granting his theory of CausaHty, Hamilton 
thinks that he is armed with a philosophical defence of the free- 
dom of the will. He points out the contradictions of his prede- 
cessors, who held that every change had a cause, but excepted the 
changes of volition. If our moral consciousness give us freedom, 
and our intellectual consciousness give us universal causation, 
it follows that our faculty of knowledge is self contradictory. 
By regarding Causality as founded on an impotence of the 
mind, Hamilton thinks that such a negative judgment cannot 
prevail against the positive testimony of consciousness. 

Hamilton has not applied the law of the Conditioned, with 
much detail, to the principle of Substance. The problem is — 
Why must I suppose that every known phenomenon is related to 
an unknown substance ? We cannot think a phenomenon without 
a substance, nor a substance without a phenomenon. Take an 
object; strip it of all its qualities ; and try to think the residuary 
substance. It is unthinkable. In the same way, try to think a 
quality as a quality, and nothing more. It is unthinkable, except 
as a phenomenon of something that does not appear ; as, in short, 
the accident of a substance. This is the law of Substance and 
Phenomenon, and is merely an instance of the law of the con- 
ditioned. 

John Stttaet Mill. Mr. Mill's views on necessary truths 
are contained in his Logic, Book II., chaps. 5 — 7. He begins by 
asking why, if the foundation of aU science is Induction, a peculiar 
certainty is ascribed to the sciences that are almost entirely de- 
ductive. The character of certainty and necessity attributed to 
mathematical truths is an illusion ; and depends upon ascribing 
them to purely imaginary objects. There exist no points without 
magnitude ; no lines without breadth, nor perfectly straight. In 
answer to this, it is said that the points and lines exist in our 
conceptions merely ; but the ideal lines and figures are copies of 
actual lines and figures. Now a point is the minimum visible, A 



70 APPENDIX — OPvIGTN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

geometrical line is inconceivable. Mr. Mill agrees with Dugald 
Stewart in regarding geometry as built upon hypotheses. The 
definitions of geometry are generalizations, obviously easy, of the 
properties of lines and figures. The conclusions of geometry are 
necessary, only as implicated in the suppositions from which they 
are evolved. The suppositions themselves merely approximate 
(though practically with sufficient accuracy) to the actual truth. 
That axioms as well as definitions must be adiaitted among the 
first principles, has been shewn by Whewell in his polemic against 
Stewart, Two axioms must be postulated : that two straight 
lines cannot inclose a space, and some property of parallel lines 
not involved in their definition. Eegarding the foundation of the 
axioms, two views are held ; one that they are experimental truths 
resting on observation ; the other that they are a priori truths. 
The chief arguments in support of the a priori theory are the 
following : — 

I. — In the first place, if our belief that two straight lines cannot 
enclose a space, were derived from the senses, we could know the 
truth of the proposition only by seeing or feeling the straight 
lines ; whereas it is seen to be true by merely thinking of them. 
By simply thinking of a stone thrown into the water, we could 
not conclude that it would go to the bottom. On the contrary, if 
I could be made to conceive a straight line without having seen 
one, I should at once know that two such lines cannot enclose a 
space. Moreover, the senses cannot assure us that, if two straight 
lines were prolonged to infinity, they would continue for ever to 
diverge. 

The answer to these arguments is found in the capacity of 
geometrical forms for being painted in the imagination with a dis- 
tinctness equal to reality. This enables us to make mental pic- 
tures of all combinations of lines and angles so closely resembling 
the realities, as to be as fit subjects of geometrical experimenta- 
tion as the realities themselves. If, then, by mere thinking we 
satisfy ourselves of the truth of an axiom, it is because we know 
that the imaginary lines perfectly represent the real ones, and 
that we may conclude from them to real ones, as we may from 
one real line to another. Thus, although we cannot follow two 
diverging lines by the eye to infinity, yet we know that, if they 
begin to converge, it must be at a finite distance ; thither we can 
follow them in imagination, and satisfy ourselves that if the lines 
begin to approach, they will not be straight, but curved. 

II. — The second argument is, that the axioms are conceived as 
universally and necessarily true. Experience cannot give to any 
proposition the character of necessity. The meaning of a necessary 
truth, as explained by Dr. Whewell, is a proposition the negation 
of which is not only false but inconceivable. The test of a neces- 
sary truth is the inconceivableness of the counter proposition. 
The power of conceiving depends very much on our constant 
experience, and familiar habits of thought. When two things 
have often been seen and thought of together, and never in any 



THE AXIOMS OF MATHEMATICS. 71 

instance seen or thouglit of separately, there is an increasing 
dif&culty (which may in the end become insuperable) of conceiving 
the two things apart. Thus, the existence of antipodes was denied, 
because men could not conceive gravity acting upwards as well 
as downwards. The Cartesians rejected the law of gravitation, 
because they could not conceive a body acting where it was not. 
The inconceivability will be strongest where the experience is 
oldest and most familiar, and where nothing ever occurs to shake 
our conviction, or even to suggest an exception. It is thus, from 
the effect of constant association, that we are unable to conceive 
the reverse of the axioms. We have not even an analogy to help 
us to conceive two straight lines enclosing a space. Nay, when 
we imagine two straight lines, in order to conceive them enclosing 
a space, we repeat the very experiment that establishes the con- 
trary. For it has been shown that imaginary lines serve as well 
for proving geometrical truths as lines in actual objects. 

Dr. Whewell has illustrated in his own person the tendency 
of habitual association to make an experimental truth appear 
necessary. He continually asserts that propositions, known to 
have been discovered by genius and labour, appear, when once 
established, so self-evident, that, but for historical proof, we 
should believe that they would be recognized as necessarily true. 
He says, that the first law of motion might have been known to 
be true independently of experience, and that, at some future 
time, chemists may possibly come to see that the law of chemical 
combination in definite proportions is .a necessary truth. 

The logical basis of Arithmetic and Algebra, In Chapter YI., 
Mr. Mill examines the nature of arithmetic and algebra. The 
first theory that he examines is founded upon extreme Nominalism. 
It asserts that all the propositions in arithmetic are merely verbal, 
and that its processes are but the ringing of changes on a few 
expressions. But how, if the processes of arithmetic are mere 
substitutions of one expression of fact for another, does the fact 
itself come out changed ? It is no doubt the peculiarity ef arith- 
metic and algebra that they are the crowning example of symboli- 
cal thinking — that is, reasoning by signs, without carrying along 
with us the ideas represented by the signs. Algebra represents 
all numbers without distinction, investigating their modes of 
combination. Since, then, algebra is true, not merely of lines 
and angles like geometry, but of all things in nature, it is no 
wonder that the symbols should not excite in our minds ideas of 
any particular thing. 

Mr. Mill denies that the definitions of the several numbers 
express only the meaning of words ; like the so-called definitions 
of Geometry, they likewise involve an observed matter of fact. 

Arithmetic is based upon . inductions, and these are of two 
kinds : first, the definitions (improperly so called) of the numbers, 
and, secondly, the axioms — ^^The sums of equals are equal; The differ- 
ences of equals are equal. The inductions are strictly true of all 
objects, although a hypothetical element may be involved ; the unit 



72 APPENDIX — OEIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

of the numbers must be tbe same or equal. One pound added to 
one pound ^^dll not make two pounds, if one pound be troy and tba 
other avoirdupois. Mathematical certainty is certainty of infer- 
ence or implication. Conclusions are true hypothetically ; how 
far the hypothesis is true is left for separate consideration. It is 
of course practicable to arrive at new conclusions from assumed 
facts, as well as from observed facts ; Descartes* theory of vortices 
being a pertinent example. 

Criticism of Spencer's Theory, Mr. Spencer agrees with Mr, 
Mill in regarding the axioms as ^ simply our earliest inductions 
from experience,' but he holds that inconceivableness is the ulti- 
mate test of all belief. And for two reasons. A belief held by 
all persons at all times ought to rank as a primitive truth. 
Secondly, the test of universal or invariable belief, is our inability 
to conceive the alleged truth as false. I believe that I feel cold, 
because I cannot conceive that I am not. So far Mr. Spencer, 
agrees with the intuitive school, but he differs from that school in 
holding the fallibility of the test of inconceivableness. It is itself 
an infallible test, but is liable to erroneous application ; and occa- 
sional failure is incident to all tests. Mr. Spencer's doctrine, 
therefore, does not erect the curable, but only the incurable 
limitations of the conceptive faculty into laws of the outward 
universe. 

Mr. Spencer's arguments for the test of inconceivableness are. 
two in number. (1) Every invariable belief represents the aggre- 
gate of all past experience. The inconceivableness of a thing 
imjDlies that it is wholly at variance with all that is inscribed on 
the register of human experience. Mr. Mill answers, even if this 
test of inconceivableness represents our experience, why resort to 
it v/hen we can go at once to experience itself ? Uniformity of 
experience is itself far from being universally a criterion of truth ; 
and inconceivableness is still farther from being a test of unifor- 
mity of experience. ;^2) Whether inconceivability be good evidence 
or bad, no stronger evidence is to be obtained. In Mr. Spencer's 
use of the word 'inconceivable,' there is an ambiguity whence 
has been derived much of the plausibility of his argument. Incon- 
ceivableness may signify inability to get rid of an idea, or inability 
to get rid of a 'belief. It was in the second sense, not in the first, 
that antipodes were inconceivable. It is in the first sense that we 
cannot conceive an end to space. In Mr. Spencer's argument, 
inconceivable really means unbelievable. ' When Mr. Spencer says 
that while looking at the sun a man cannot conceive that he is 
looking into darkness, he means a man cannot heUeve that he is 
doing so.' !N'ow, many have disbelieved the externality of matter, 
even although they may have been unable to imagine tangible 
objects as mere states of consciousness. One may be unable to 
get rid of the idea of externality, and nevertheless regard it as an 
illusion. Thus we believe that the earth moves, and not the sun, 
although we constantly conceive the sun as rising and setting, and 
the earth as motionless. Yf hether then we mean by inconceivable 



MANSEL ON THE AXIOMS. 78 

ness, inability to get rid of an idea or inability to get rid of 
a belief, Mr. Spencer's argument fails to be convincing. 

Henby L. Mansel. Mr. Mansel has examined the subject of 
Intuition in his Prolegomena Logica, Chap. III. — ^VI., and in his 
Metaphysics. He takes up four kinds of necessity : mathematical, 
metaphysical, logical, and moral. He, to a great degree, follows 
Kant and Sir W. Hamilton. 

I. — Mathematical I^ecessity. Mr. Mansel adopts the cri- 
terion of Necessity, enounced by Leibnitz. Whatever truths we 
must admit as everywhere and always necessary, must arise, not 
from observation, but from the constitution of the mind. Attempts 
have indeed been miade to explain this necessity by a constant 
association of ideas, but associations, however frequent and uni- 
form, fail to produce a higher conviction than one of mere 
physical necessity. 

1. The Axioms of Geometry, The axioms of Geometry contain 
both analytical and synthetical judgments, (the distinction corre- * 
sponding to Mill's verbal and real propositions).* 

It is upon the synthetical judgments that the dispute turns. 
Are those axioms a priori, or derived from experience ? Mr. Mansel 
says that Mr. Mill's argument contradicts the direct evidence of 
consciousness, and, however powerful as an argumentum ad Jiominem 
against Dr. Whewell, fails to meet the real question at issue. 

* What is required is to account, not for the necessity of geome- 
trical axioms as truths relating to objects without the mind, but as 
thoughts relating to objects within.' * Why must I invest ima- 
ginary objects with attributes not contained in the definition of 
them ? I can imagine the sun remaining continually fixed in the 
meridian, or a stone sinking 99 times and floating the 100th ; and 
yet my experience of the contrary is as invariable as my experience 
of the geometrical properties of bodies.' Why then do we attri- 
bute a higher necessity to the axioms of Geometry ? The answer 
is taken direct from Kant. It is because space is itself an a priori 
notion, not derived from without, but part of the original furniture 
of the mind. The author here draws a distinction between the part 
played by imagination in empirical and in necessary judgments. 
In empirical judgments, its value depends upon the fidelity of 
its adherency to the original. Geometrical truths, on the 
other hand, are absolutely true of the objects of imagination, but 
only nearly true of real objects. The reason is, that the truths 
of physical science depend on experience alone, but geometry 
relates to the figures of that a priori space, which is the indis- 
pensable condition of all experience. 

2. Arithmetic, Arithmetic is richly, as geometry is scantily, 

* Analytical judgments are : * The whole is greater than its part ; * 

* If equals be added to equals, the sums are equal;' * Things that are 
equal to the same are equal to each other.' Synthetical judgments 
are : * A straight line is the shortest distance between two points ; * * Two 
straight lines which, being met by a third, make the interior angles less 
than two right angles, will meet, if produced.' 



74 APPENDIX — ORIGIN OF KNOWLEDGE. 

supplied with a priori principles. * It is not by reasoning we 
learn that two and two make four, nor from this proposition can 
we in any way deduce that four and two make six.' We must 
have recourse in each separate case to the senses or the imagina- 
tion, and, by presenting to the one or to the other a number of 
individual objects corresponding to each term separately, envisage 
the resulting sum.* 

No number is capable of definition. Six cannot be defined as 
5 + 1. In this view of Arithmetic, Mansel remarks that he differs 
from Leibnitz, Hegel, and Mill. [It is not proper to put Mill 
along with Leibnitz in this connexion.] 

II.— Metaphysical Necessity. Metaphysics, as well as 
Mathematics, has been regarded as possessed of Synthetical judg- 
ments. Two are selected for examination, the Principles of 
Substance and Causality. 

1. The Principle of Substance is that all objects of perception are 
. qualities that exist in some subject to which they belong. Eeid said 
a ball has colour and figure, but it is not colour and figure; it is 
something that has colour and figure, — it is a substance. Berkeley 
thought it more consonant even with common sense to reject this im- 
perceptible support of perceived attributes. Hume observed that, 
as we are conscious of nothing but impressions and ideas, we may 
as well throw away the barren figment of Mind. In opposition to 
this, Eeid appealed to the Principle of Substance as a dictate of com- 
mon sense. But are we conscious of substance ? Eeid and Stewart 
have again and again conceded that we are not ; they have conse- 
quently abandoned the only position from which a successful attack 
could be made on either Berkeley or Hume. Mr. Mansel therefore, 
after Maine de Biran, affirms that we are immediately conscious of 
Self as substance. The one intuited substance is myself, in the form 
of a power conscious of itself. The notion of substance, thus 
derived, may be applied to other conscious beings, but not farther. 
In regard to physical phenomena, we have no positive notion of 
substance other than the phenomena themselves. Mr. Mansel is 
thus unable to prove substance against Berkeley, but he nevertheless 
complains that Berkeley denied, instead of merely doubting, the 
existence of matter. In conclusion, it is not a necessary truth that 
all sensible qualities belong to a subject. ' Nor is it correct to 
call it a fundamental law of human belief ; if by that expression is 
meant anything inore than an assertion of the universal tendency 
of men to liken other things to themselves, and to speak of them 
under forms of expression adapted to such likeness, far beyond the 
point where the parallel fails.* 

*■ In a note, Mr. Mansel adds, * The real point at issue is not whether 
4 and 2 + 2 are at bottom identical — so that both heivg given, an analysis 
of each will ultimately show their correspondence ; but whether the for- 
mer notion, definition and all, is contained in the latter. In other words, 
whether a man who has never learned to count beyond two, could obtain 
3, 4, 5, and all higher numbers, by mere dissection of the numbers which 
he possesses already.' 



CAUSALITY. 75 

2. The Principle of Causality, — ^Whatever begins to exist must 
lake place in consequence of some cause. Hume and Brown regard 
jause as mere invariable sequence. This theory of causation con- 
founds two facts. That every event must have some antecedent or 
other, is one thing ; that this particular event must have this par- 
ticular antecedent, is a very different thing. The uniformity of 
nature is only a law of things, an observed fact, the contradictory 
of which is at any time conceivable. This portion of the principle 
of causation is not a» necessary truth. But that every event must 
have some antecedent or other is a necessary truth. For we must 
think every event as occurring in time, and therefore as related to 
some antecedent in time. Thus far Mr. Mansel adopts the theory 
of Sir W. Hamilton. 

The analysis that resolves causation into mere temporal antece- 
dents is, however, imperfect. To complete the notion of cause, we 
must add the idea of productive power, Eeid was unable to meet 
Hume's theory of causation, as he was unable to meet his theory of 
substance, and in both cases for the same reason. He denied a con- 
sciousness of mind as distinguished from its states and operations. 
Hume showed that volition had no power to move a limb, for 
paralysis might supervene, and the supposed power of volition 
would be destroyed. Mr. Mansel seeks for an intuition of power. 
* The intuition of Power is not immediately given in the action of 
matter upon matter ; nor yet can it be given in the action of 
matter upon mind, nor in that of mind upon matter ; for to this 
day we are utterly ignorant how matter and mind operate upon 
each other.' Where, then, is such an intuition to be found ? In 
mind as determining its own inodijications, * In every act of voli- 
tion, I am fully conscious that it is in my power to form the reso- 
lution or to abstain ; and this constitutes the presentative con- 
sciousness of free will and of power.' The idea of power is thus 
a relation between ourselves and our volitions (not our move- 
ments). Can any similar relation exist between the heat of fire 
and the melting of wax ? It cannot be said that there is ; and 
thus Causality, as applied to matter, is a negative notion. The 
only positive meaning of cause is either some antecedent or an 
invariable antecedent. Mr. Mansel (in this respect following 
Hamilton) draws attention to the fact that by breaking through 
the objective necessity of Causality, a door is opened for the ad- 
mission of free-will. 

III.— Logical Necessity consists of the three laws of thought, 
the well-known principles of Identity, Contradiction, and Ex- 
cluded Middle. The discussion of those laws, however, falls more 
within the province of logic. 

IV. — MonAii Necessity. Moral judgments are necessary, as, 
e.g., ingratitude and treachery must at all times be worthy of con- 
demnation. (For the theory of duty, see Ethical Systems, 
Mansel.) 



76 APPENDIX — HAPPINESS, 



C. — On JSajppiness, 

The highest application of the facts and laws of the mind is to 
Human Happiness. The doctrines relative to the Feelings have 
the most direct bearing on this end. It may be useful to resume 
briefly the various considerations bearing upon Happiness, and to 
compare them with the maxims that have grown up in the ex- 
perience of mankind. We shall thus also supply an indispensable 
chapter of Ethics. 

Happiness being defined the surplus of pleasure over pain, its 
pursuit must lie in accumulating things agreeable, and in warding 
off the opposites. The susceptibilities of the mind to enjoyment 
should be gratified to the utmost, and the susceptibilities to suffer- 
ing should be spared to the utmost. It is impossible to contest 
this general conclusion, without altering the signification of the 
word. Still, the practical carrying out of the maxim, under all 
the complications of the human system, bodily and mental, de- 
mands many adjustments and reservations. 

If the enumeration of Muscular Feelings, Sensations, and 
Emotions be complete, it contains all our pleasures and pains. It 
is unnecessary to repeat the list in detail. On the side of Plea- 
sure, we have, as leading elements : — Muscular Exercise, Eest 
after exercise; Healthy Organic Sensibility in general, and 
Alimentary Sensations in particular ; Sweet Tastes and Odours ; 
Soft and Warm Touches ; Melody and Harmony in Sound ; Cheer- 
ful Light and Coloured Spectacle ; the Sexual feelings ; Liberty 
after constraint ; Novelty and Wonder ; the warm Tender Emo- 
tions ; Sexual, Maternal and Paternal Love, Friendship, Admira- 
tion, Esteem, and Sociability in general; Self-complacency and 
Praise ; Power, Influence, Command ; Pevenge ; the Interest of 
Plot and Pursuit; the charms of Knowledge and Intellectual 
exertion ; the cycle of the Fine Arts, culminating in Music, 
Painting, and Poetry, with which we couple the enjoyment of 
Natural Beauty; the satisfaction attainable through Sympathy 
and the Moral Sentiment. In such an array, we seem to have all, 
or nearly all, the ultimate gratifications of human nature. They 
may spread themselves by association on allied objects, and 
especially on the means or instrumentality for procuring them, as 
Health, Wealth, Knowledge, Power, Dignified Position, Yii'tue, 
Society, Country, Life. 

The Pains are mostly implied in the negation of the pleasures 
Muscular fatigue, Organic derangements and diseases. Cold, 
Hunger, ill Tastes and Odours ; Skin lacerations ; Discords in 
Sound; Darkness, Gloom, and excessive glare of Light; ungratified 
Sexual Appetite ; Restraint after Freedom ; Monotony ; Fear in 
all its manifestations ; privation in the Affections, Sorrow ; Self- 
humiliation and Shame; Impotence and Servitude; disappointed 
Eevenge ; baulked Pursuit or Plot ; Intellectual Contradictions 



THE ELEMENTARY PLEASURES AND PAINS, 77 

and Obscurity ; the -^stlietically Ugly ; Harrowed Sympatliies ; 
an evil Conscience. 

As summed up in groups or aggregates, we have the pains or 
evils of 111 Health, Poverty, Toil, Ignorance, Meanness and 
Impotence, Isolation, and general Obstruction, Death. 

Looking at human nature on the whole, we may single out as 
pleasures of the first order, Maternal love, Sexual love. Paternal 
love. Friendship, Complacency and Approbation, Power and 
Liberty newly achieved, Pelishes, Stimulants, Warmth after 
chillness, and the higher delights of the ordinary Senses. In the 
absence of any considerable pains, a small selection of these gra- 
tifications, regularly supplied, Avould make up a joyful existence. 

There are various practically important distinctions among our 
pleasures. In the first place, a certain number are primary 
susceptibilities of the human constitution; as the organic plea- 
sures, the simpler gratifications of the five senses, the appetite of 
sex, and the elementary emotions. Others are cultivated or 
acquired, or are incidental to a high mental cultivation ; as the 
higher susceptibilities to Fine Art, the aifections and tender 
associations, the pleasures of knowledge. While cultivation may 
thus enlarge the sphere of pleasure, it necessarily creates new 
susceptibilities to pain ; the absence or negation of those qualities 
rendered artificially agreeable must needs be painful. 

Another distinction of importance is between the pleasures 
that ajDpear as appetite, and those that are desired only in con- 
sequence of gratification. The natural appetites are well known ; 
to refuse the objects of these is to inflict suffering. Other plea- 
sures, if unstimulated, are unfelt : the rustic, inexperienced in the 
excitement of cities, has no painful longings for their pleasures ; 
not through the want of susceptibility, but from there being no 
craving for such things prior to actual tasting. Human beings 
cannot be contented without the gratification of natural appetites ; 
as to the privation of other pleasures, mere ignorance is bliss. 

While it is a property of pleasure generally to prompt to effort 
and to desire without limit, there are certain circumstances that 
neutralize this tendency. One of these is the occurrence of pain 
at a certain stage, as when appetite palls by exhausted irritability. 
Another mode of quenching the insatiability of the pleasurable is 
found in the soothing tendency of the massive pleasures ; a gentle 
and diffused stimulus is quieting and soporific. These constitute 
an important exception to the law of pleasure, and give birth 
to our serene and satisfying enjoyments, as warmth, affection, and 
the forms of beauty suggestive of repose. But Fine Art also con- 
tains, and glories in, ways of stimulating unbounded desire, under 
the name of the Ideal. 

A farther mode of classifying pleasures is into — (1) those that 
are productive of pleasure to others, as the sympathies and bene- 
volent affections, and all the pleasurable associations with virtuous 
conduct; (2) the gratifications that all may share in, as most of 
the Fine Art pleasures ; (3) those that are in their nature attain- 



78 A PPENDIX — HAPPINESS. 

able by all, but are consumed by the user, as many material 
agencies — food, space, house furniture, and, with a certain quali- 
fication, love, which, in the actual, is limited in quantity; (4) 
pleasures where a single person is gratified at the expense of others, 
as in power, dignity, and fame. The one extreme is identified 
with the harmony and mutual sympathy of human beings, the 
other with rivalry and mutual hostility. 

The leading circumstance of Happiness — the accumulation of 
whatever can yield pleasure and remove pain — is qualified, in the 
first place, by the Law of Relatiyity, as formerly explained. The 
operation of this law has a number of pregnant consequences, 
more or less taken into account in men's practice. 

1. Absolute and entire Novelty of Sensation is necessary to 
the highest zest of any pleasure. A newly attained delight — a 
mother's first child, a first love, is 'beyond what can ever be rea- 
lized again. 

2. Every pleasure must be remitted in order to maintain its 
efiicacy. Only for a certain limited time can the thrill of any 
delight be maintained ; the stimulus then requires to be with- 
drawn for a period corresponding to the intensity of the effect. 

3. In order to maintain a considerable flow of delight, each 
person must possess a variety of sources of pleasure ; and the 
more that these differ in kind, or the more complete the alterna- 
tion, the greater the happiness. It is hopeless to attain much 
enjoyment by playing upon any single string, however acute may 
be its thrill. 

4. The reaction from pain is a source of great delight ; as in 
restoration to health, the dispersing of a deep gloom or melan- 
choly, the recovery from panic, the quenching of a long- repressed 
appetite. It is not true, however, that all pleasure demands to be 
preceded by pain ; mere remission is enough to dispose us for the 
gratification of food, exercise, music, or society. The distinction 
between the two kinds of pleasures is an important one ; the last 
are our best and purest delights, although the first may by virtue 
of previous suffering be very intense. 

5. Alternation is of great avail in lightening the pains of toil. 
When exhausted by one kind of work, we may yet be capable of 
some other, until such time as the system generally is worn out. 
The change, however, must be real : as in passing from mental 
work to bodily exertion; from reflection to expression; from 
abstract speculation to business ; from science to fine art ; from 
isolated action to co-operation with others. 

6. The same emotion may be prolonged in its resonance by 
mere change of subject. The elation of the sublime is renewed 
in passing from one vast prospect to another, as in journeying 
through Alpine scenery. 

7. The extension of our Happiness depends upon the acquiring 
of tastes, or susceptibilities of delight, in addition to what we 
have by nature. This will be again alluded to among tlie bearings 
of education on happiness. 



HEALTH. 79 

The relations of Happiness to Health are of great importance, 
but somewhat complicated in the statement. 

Health must be defined as not simply the absence of physical 
pain, or derangement, but also a certain amount of vigour both 
for action and for sensibility. The healthy condition is not in 
itself a pleasure, except in the moments of recovery from illness, 
or of invigoration after depression. 

It is manifestly essential that each one should have vigour 
sufficient to bear up against all unavoidable labours and burdens ; 
without this, life must be a perpetual sense of oppression. 

There is a still closer connexion between health and happiness, 
in the fact that certain physical functions of the nerves, and of 
some other special organs, are expressly allied to our sensibility. 
The human system has many sides, and many functions ; and of 
the mental manifestations, there are three distinct departments, 
corresponding to the divisions of the mind. Now, happiness is 
not the immediate result of either Volition or Intelligence, but of 
Feeling^ or the Emotional side of our being. A natural endow- 
ment for emotion, and great vigour and freshness in the organs 
concerned in emotion, — partly the Brain, and partly the Digestion, 
and the Secreting processes formerly shown to be related to 
feeling — make the physical basis of susceptibility to pleasure; 
hence the conservation of all these functions is the kind of health 
that directly bears on happiness. 

It is well known that there are great differences in diseases, 
as respects their influence on the tone of enjoyment. Certain 
forms of nervous derangement, indigestion in most of its varieties, 
enfeebled circulation, are immediate sources of mental depression ; 
on the other hand, the brain may be far on the road to paralysis, 
the heart may be in a state of degeneration, the lungs may be form- 
ing tubercles, the kidney affected with a mortal disease, while as 
yet but little diminution has taken place in the aptitude for enjoy- 
ment. In the one class of ailments, happiness is impaired almost 
■from the first ; in the other, the loss appears in shortened life. In 
the first case, there is a self-correcting reminder ; in the second, a 
fatal* sense of security, which as yet mankind have never learned 
to surmount by an effort of the reason. 

As a general rule, hardly any employment of one's means and 
resources is so advantageous as the maintenance of a high state of 
vigour, both in the body in general, and in the organs of emotional 
sensibility in particular. Better to surrender many objects of 
pleasure, than to impair the organs of pleasure ; few stimulants 
in a highly conditioned system are preferable to a greater number 
in an exhausted state of the sensibility. The rule may not be 
without exceptions ; a less degree of health, coupled with one's 
supreme gratification, is more desirable than the very highest 
degree without that. One may be happier in the town, although 
healthier in the country. But, on the whole, the tendency is to 
undervalue the element of physical freshness in our pursuits, not 
to see that the loss of physical tone, consequent on the excess of 



80 APPENDIX — HAPPINESS. 

toil, is a chief cause of our disappointment in attaining the objects 
of our toil. The man that has made his fortune, and sacrificed 
his zest for enjoyment, is an unsuccessful man. 

The problem of health necessarily involves all the special pre- 
cautions against the known injuries and ailments. It involves 
the still more comprehensive purpose expressed generally by the 
proportioning of Expenditure to means of Support ; — that is to 
say, the limitation of exhausting agencies — labour, irregularities, 
excesses ; and the husbanding of sustaining and renovating 
agencies — nutrition, air, regimen, and all the hygienic resources. 
It is farther desirable that the economical adjustment of waste 
and supply should be commenced from our earliest years, and not, 
as usually happens, after a conscious reduction of vigour has 
roused the individual to a sense of imminent danger. There is a 
known proportion of labour, rest, nourishment, and exciting plea- 
sure, suited to the average constitution, and compatible with the 
full duration of life ; on this each one is safe to proceed at the 
outset, until the specialities of constitution are known. Any one 
presuming by virtue of youthful vigour and the absence of imme- 
diate bad consequences, to abridge the usual allowance of food, of 
sleep, of rest, of bodily exercise, and not at the same time owning 
any counterbalancing sources of renovation, is perilling life or 
happiness. 

The special bearings of AcTiYiTT and Occupation on Hap- 
piness, have been almost exhausted under the emotion of Plot- 
interest and Pursuit. Irrespective of the necessity of productive 
labour or industry, a great deal is constantly said respecting occu- 
pation as such, with a view to happiness. Some of our pleasures are 
pleasures of Activity, as bodily and mental exercise in the fresh 
condition of the system, and the putting forth of special energies 
and endowments ; these are enhanced either by yielding valu- 
able products, or by gratifying the pride of superiority to others. 
But the all-important feature of occupation is the anaesthetic ten- 
dency of pursuit, already dwelt upon. "Whatever maybe the num- 
ber or variety of our passive enjoyments, we cannot fill the day with 
these ; the greatest compass of emotional susceptibility would be 
exhausted by a succession of pleasurable stimulants, with unin- 
terrupted self-consciousness. The alternation of the object-regards 
with the subject- states is indispensable to avoiding the ennui of 
too much conscious excitement ; and this is most readily supplied 
in the engrossment of pursuit. By spending the larger part of 
the day in the indifferentism of a routine occupation, we are pre- 
pared, during the remainder, to burst out into flashes of keen self - 
consciousness. The fewer our pleasures, the more needful for us 
to have a deadening occupation to fill the time, to banish self- 
consciousness when it could only be painful. 

The explanation of the use of Activity to happiness implies the 
limitation. If the susceptibility to pleasure — the emotional tem- 
perament — be highly developed, and the sources of pleasure 
numerous and unexhausting, the portion of life deadened by 



KNOWLEDGE. 81 

occupation and pursuit may be proportionally contracted, to give 
scope to the wakened sensibilities — the full consciousness of enjoy- 
ment. 

Happiness is materially affected by Knowledge, or an 
acquaintance with the course of nature and of humanity. The 
characteristic of knowledge is accuracy, certainty, precision ; its 
highest form is expressed by Science. 

That a knowledge of the order of nature is requisite for 
extracting the good, and neutralizing the evil, agencies is plain 
enough. But the wide compass of the knowable cannot be over- 
taken by one mind ; there is a division of labour ; each department 
having its experts, relied on by the rest of the community. "What 
kind and amount of knowledge it is advisable for all to possess, 
with a view to happiness, may not be easily agreed upon. The 
following considerations are offered on this point. 

1. The acquisition of knowledge in any considerable amount, 
or to any great degree of precision, is toilsome, costly, and un- 
palatable to the mass of mankind; so that to dispense with it 
makes a clear gain, provided the want is fraught with no serious 
results. By favourable accidents of situation — such as a lot with 
few complications and risks, a ready access to skilled advisers, an 
aptitude for enduring the commoner hazards, a surplus of worldly 
means to remedy blunders, and general good fortune, — a small 
amount of acquired knowledge may answer all the ends of life. 
Ignorance implies large dependence on others, and on the accidents 
of things ; and, according to circumstances, is blissful or tragic in 
its issues.. 

2. On the supposition that one is willing to pay the cost of 
acquisition, for the greater command and certainty of the means 
of happiness, the subjects directly applicable to the end appear to 
be these. In the first place, there should be a familiarity with 
our Bodily Constitution ; a knowledge still more requisite when 
as parents, guardians, teachers, we have the control of the lives 
of others. In the next place, the elements of Physical and 
Chemical science, besides their direct bearing on the physiology 
of the human frame, have many collateral applications in every- 
day life, as in matters relating to cleanliness, warmth, clothing, 
purity of the air, cookery, &c. In the third place, some know- 
ledge of the Mind, whether attained by observation, by theory, 
or by both conjoined, is of value in appreciating character and 
dispositions, and in the guidance and management of those about 
us. Fourthly, knowledge of the course of Affairs in the world 
generally, arrived at by observation and by historical and political 
studies, is essential to the guidance of our footsteps in the society we 
live in. Fifthly, whatever studies lead to an accurate estimate of 
Evidence, are of the highest import ; their application extending 
much beyond our own happiness. A large number of our de- 
cisions must be made upon evidence that is only Probable ; and 
to find out where the preponderance lies needs either practical or 
scientific training. The aptitude for judging according to the 



82 APPENDIX — HAPPINESS. 

reasons of things, if it were more widely possessed, would be seen 
to ramify in endless ameliorations of the lot of humanity. Besides 
the success that would attend expectations so based, it is in the 
nature of such reasonings to command agreement among different 
minds, and thereby conduce to harmonious co-operation, where 
at present the rule is distraction and discord. 

The poetical and romantic pictures, cherished for the sake of 
our aspirations ^nd ideals, are directly opposed to the conditions 
of the knowledge now depicted, and add to our difficulties, both 
in attaining it, and in putting it in practice. Yet, as these 
ideals, although they should be moderately indulged in, cannot 
be expelled from human life, it is a point of som.e moment, to 
know what is their exact bias, and to make allowance for that, 
when we have to quit fancy for the domain of fact. Now, the 
exaggerating tendencies of artistic embellishment, to be guarded 
against, relate mainly to the possibilities of happiness ; giving an 
overstrained account of what human nature can do, and can 
enjoy. The rcrmancist uniformlyoversteps the limitations of the 
human faculties, and throws out lures to make us attempt too 
much ; an exact knowledge of the physical and the mental laws, 
and of that crowning aspect of them, the general law called 
Correlation or Persistence of Force, is the best counteractive. 

3. In knowledge of the kind now speciiied, lies the means of 
conquering the happiness -destroyer, Fear. For the sake of this 
great victory, Epicurus thought the sacrifice of religion not too 
much. No other source of courage is comparable to knowledge ; 
it teaches what fears are baseless, without sapping the wise pre- 
cautions against evil. 

4. When the attainment of such knowledge as is now speci- 
fied, is a special liking or individual taste, the concurrence is one 
fortunate for happiness to self, and a power of good for all around. 
Each highly- cultivated intelligence, combining exactness with 
extent of acquirement, is a luminous body thrown out on the dark 
ways of human life. 

The bearings upon Happiness, of Education or Training, in 
its widest compass, are next to be noted, the special department 
of high intellectual culture having been now sufficiently ad- 
verted uO. 

1. Whatever training and instructions can do to fit us for our 
necessary avocations and labours, adds to our happiness. The 
pains of labour are alleviated by a good early training to the work. 
The horseman that has been habituated to the saddle from 
childhood, is not only more efficient, but more at ease than the 
late learner. Pitt's training in oratory under his father, contri- 
buted alike to his greatness, and to his enjoyment of the exercise 
of speaking. 

2. A training to inevitable restraints, if commenced from early 
years, and sustained without intermission, triumphs over all uneasi- 
ness. Such is the submission of the soldier born in the army, 
and the habituation of the priest to his artificial mode of life 



EDUCATION. 83 

It is on this principle, that the child carefully trained to pru- 
dential and moral restraints, and so secured against the relapses 
of the neglected offspring of vice and poverty, is placed, by that 
fact alone, on a vantage ground of happiness. 

3. The amusements and amenities of life are only enjoyed to 
the full after special training. Even our games, sports, and 
pastimes, must be the subject of instruction; while the exercise 
and enjoyment of the Fine Arts — Music, Painting, Elocution — 
involve the cost of special masters. What are terrhed accomplish- 
ments are artificial and refined pleasures ; they are a pure addition 
to the sum of enjoyment, and have no other meaning. 

A very large mass of human pleasure is mixed up with our 
sociability ; and much of our education consists in fitting us for 
intercourse with others ; the end being to reduce the friction of 
uncultivated minds associating together, and to increase the plea- 
sures of co-operation, sympathy, and affection. 

An acquaintance with foreign languages may be classed among 
the means of pleasure. Eor people generally, they are the luxuries 
of education. The ancient tongues introduce us to a large fund 
of novel impressions ; the languages of our contemporaries open 
an additional field of fresh and varied interest. It may be doubted, 
however, if the cost of the acquirement is repaid, in the ma- 
jority of cases, by the advantage. 

(4) Tastes may be formed and strengthened by education, and 
every taste that there are means to gratify, is a part of happiness. 
An instructor, or a companion, may foster in us a taste for plants, 
for conchology, for antiquities ; the meaning of which is that these 
several objects find a greater response of joyful feeling. Whether 
such an acquirement is desirable on the whole depends on circum- 
stances ; the education thus bestowed must occupy a space in one's 
life, and may possibly exclude some more valuable acquisition. 

Education with a view to the maximum of happiness is a very, 
different thing from education to greatness, or the maximum of 
efficiency for some important function. For happiness, tastes and 
accomplishments should be widely extended ; even if there be one 
leading taste, it should not be exclusive ; the law of relativity 
forbids the highest enjoyment to the monopoly of the mind with 
a single subject. Yet such monopoly is the condition of the 
greatest vigour of the faculties for some one end. The man that 
towers in science, in art, in statesmanship, in business, needs to 
be so engrossed with his subject, as to be excluded from variety 
of interests ; he may have the reward of his greatness in moments 
of triumphant superiority, but he is liable to periods of protracted 
ennui. 

As there is a natural constitution fitted for happiness, so there 
is an education possessing a like fitness. 

There can be no very^great happiness without paying regard 
to Individuality. The ideal state is the gratification of each 
taste, and the exercise of each faculty, in exact proportion to their 
degree of prominence. If the natural sociability be great, the 



84 APPENDIX — HAPPINESS. 

opportunities should correspond ; if little, there should be an 
exemption from society. Many persons have some one prevailing 
bent, which being gratified makes happiness in itself, and which 
being refused leaves a blank not to be otherwise filled up, Sokrates 
declared that he would rather die than give up his vocation of 
cross-questioning. Faraday was miserable till he was placed in 
Davy's laboratory. Human beings differ so much, that the very 
same lot may be felicity to one and wretchedness to another. 

The individuality that is not to be satisfied without a dispro- 
portionate share of worldly advantages being put out of the 
account, the most important circumstance is a fitting Occupation. 
To ascertain betimes the most decided bent and aptitude of each 
person, and to find a career suited to that, is the prime requisite 
of a fortunate lot. Next to a harmonizing avocation is the choice 
of Eecreations and tastes, which may infuse gladness into the hours 
of leisure, the holiday weeks, and the years of retirement. This, 
well thought of, and prepared for, by early choice, by education 
and fostering, will make oases in the desert waste of an unattrac- 
tive profession. 

The existence of unsatisfied Desiee is, so far as it goes, un- 
happiness. An effort of judgment must pronounce whether we 
should endeavour to suppress a desire impracticable, or retain it 
either as a goal of pursuit or as an ideal longing. Forced con- 
tentment is the result of the first alternative ; activity in actual, 
or in imaginary pursuit, is the second. 

If an object is attainable by efforts not out of proportion to its 
value, we naturally pursue it. Contentment in the midst of 
wretchedness, squalor, poverty, is no virtue. 

The indulgence in Ideals is a nicer question. Without giving 
some scope to our longings for higher fortunes and greater excel- 
lence, we should feel that we were cribbed, cabined, and confined ; 
,while such longings are liable to unfit us for seizing the actual. 
One of the most prudent and systematic of Mvers, Andrew Combe, 
pled for a moderate indulgence in fiction ; there is neither possi- 
bility nor propriety in excluding poetry and romance from the 
class of open pleasures. Ideals are a kmd of stimulation^ and the 
wisest will always differ as to the limits of their employment ; 
although there can be little doubt as to which is the safe side. 

We are next to consider the relation of Happiness to Wealth, 
or worldly abundance and advantages. At first sight, this would 
seem a simple matter. Not merely the terms of the definition of 
happiness, but all the conditions now considered, suppose a certain 
amount of worldly means ; health, knowledge, education, indi\i- 
duality, are not to be obtained except at some expense ; and are 
attainable in higher degrees according to the resources at our dis- 
posal. The general rule is apparently what is expressed in the 
remark of Sydney Smith, that he was a happier man for every 
additional guinea that came to him. Such at least is the deliberate 
judgment of the great mass of mankind, and the guiding principle 
of nearly all their labours ; some may be industrious from other 



WEALTH. — VIRTUE. 85 

motives, but the general multitude labour for money. And scarcely 
any limit is admitted to tbe pursuit ; it would seem as if, at no 
pitch of pecuniary fortune, farther acquisition were considered 
futile. 

Some of the consequences of this principle in its naked and 
unqualified aspect are undoubtedly grave and unpalatable to con- 
template. Whoever would wish to believe in something like 
equality among human beings, must revolt at a doctrine which 
proportions enjoyment to wealth, and assigns to the millions of 
mankind a lot incompatible with any tolerable share of happiness. 
Moreover, the prize offered to cupidity, in the statement of such a 
principle, cannot but seem dangerous to the safety of possessions, 
and the order of society. Accordingly, moralists in every age 
have sought to invalidate the doctrine, by a counter statement of 
evils attaching to the possession of great riches. With some 
truth, a vast amount of exaggeration and rhetoric has been in- 
fused into the attack on opulence. That the rich are not perfectly 
happy is a fact, that they are not happier than the poor is an 
untenable position. Wealth multiplies the pleasures and allevi- 
ates the pains of life ; and if it brings any evils peculiar to itself, 
it also brings remedies. 

The most obvious temptation of wealth, coupled with idleness, 
is to immoderate indulgences. Another is the aiming at too many 
excitements, which necessarily entails troubles in management, as 
well as expenditure. A certain aptitude for business is necessary 
to smooth the possession and enjoyment of wealth ; there may be 
individuals so devoid of this turn as to feel acutely the disadvan- 
tages ; but, in their case, poverty is equally hoxDeless. To observe 
the limitations of the human powers, both in labour and in enjoy- 
ment, is not as yet the virtue of any class, while it is practicable 
only to a certain grade of abundance. 

There are vices of the rich that mar their happiness ; but 
most of them are also vices of the poor. So there are virtues 
of the poor favourable to happiness ; all which are equally pos- 
sible, and still more fruitful, to the rich. That prime requisite, 
Health, is very imperfectly secured in the lowest grades even of 
respectable citizenship. The public registers have demonstrated 
that mortality and disease diminish at every rise in the scale of 
wealth. The difference in the means of Knowledge and Education 
is no less strongly in favour of the superior happiness of the rich. 

The relationship of Happiness to Yirtue, or Duty, is difficult 
to state with impartiality and precision. Here too we encounter 
the fervid views of the oratorical moralist, sanctified by the usage 
of all countries. It has been often laid down, that happiness, full 
and complete, is found in duty and in nothing else. 

In order to see whether this assertion admits of being verified, 
it is necessary to approach the question from the other end. W^e 
must begin with the clear and undeniable fact, that duty, or virtue, 
is a sacrifice or surrender of something agreeable, from a regard to 
the interests of others ; as when we pay our share of public burdens, 



86 APPENDIX — HAPPINESS. 

and restrain our desires for what is not our own. It is the essential 
of such, acts to be painful ; although, under certain circumstances, 
they may become agreeable. It would be a self-contradiction to 
maintain that acts of virtue are, from their very nature, and at all 
times, delightful ; virtue in that case would not be virtue ; being 
swallowed up in pleasure, it would be viewed simply as pleasure, 
and often disapproved of, as excessive and tending to vice. 

"We have already seen, under what limitations benevolence is 
a source of pleasure [p. 244] ;. the main condition being recipro- 
cation, in some form or other. There is nothing necessarily self- 
rewarding either in benevolence or in duty. As regards duty, the 
principle of reciprocation also applies ; when our abstaining from 
injury to other persons insures their abstaining from injury to us, 
we have the full value of our self-denial. It is the endeavour of 
society to secure this kind of reciprocity, and not only so, but to 
make each one's abstinence indispensable to their immunity. 
Virtue then becomes happiness, not by nature, but by institution. 
If a man can reap the advantages of society without paying the 
cost, he is happy in his vice, and would be less happy in his virtue. 

It is one of the effects of moral training to create revulsion of 
feeling to whatever society deems vnrong ; vice is clothed with 
painful associations, and virtue is the only road compatible with 
happiness. Such essentially is Conscience. The person trained 
to a high intensity of these feelings is unable to take delight in 
things really delightful, if they are forbidden by conscience, 
echoing society. 

The only remaining circumstance that spoils the happiness of 
doing wrong is the existence of a certain amount of sympathy, or 
natural disinterestedness, in each one's constitution. The effect of 
sympathy is to make one shrink from the infliction of obvious 
pain, and to neutralize, in some degree, the pleasure of following 
out a natural bent at the expense of misery to others. 

But for these three circumstances, — sure retribution, the asso- 
ciations of moral training, and a fund of natural sympathy — the 
neglect of duty would, to all appearance, be the direct road to 
happiness. If we look to the facts, and not to what we wish and 
endeavour to bring about, we find that the happiest man is not 
the man of highest virtues, but he that can obtain social recipro- 
city and immunity, at a moderate outlay. To realize the greatest 
happiness of virtue, we should be careful to conform to the 
standard of the time, neither rising above nor falling beneath it; 
we should make our virtues apparent and showy, and perform 
them at the least sacrifice to ourselves : we should have our asso- 
ciations with duty, as well as our natural spnpathies, only in a 
moderate degree of strength. 

It is thus in vain to identify virtue with prudence, that is, with 
happiness. Duty is in part, and only in part, coincident with 
enjoyment. To form men to the highest virtues, we must appeal 
to other motives than their happiness, to the sources of disin- 
terested conduct so often alluded to. It will then appear that 



RELIGION. 87 

very great virtue is often opposed to happiness; the applause 
bestowed on the sublimely virtuous man is by way of making 
good a deficiency. 

The happiness of Eeligion, in its relation to a future life, is 
not comparable to any of the enjoyments of this life. But as expe- 
rienced through the sensibilities of our common nature, it may be 
not improperly brought into the comparison. The religious affec- 
tions grow up like any others : ^;hey are more or less favoured by 
natural constitution, cherished by exercise, and echoed from all 
venerated objects and symbols. The religious fears are overcome 
by the same laws of our being as any other fears. The resulting 
happiness is the. predominance of the affections over the fears. 
The pleasures of devotion have their fixed amount, in each indi- 
vidual, like the pleasures of knowledge or of fme art. 

The securing of Happiness in any considerable degree, sup- 
poses Method, or a plan of life, well conceived, and steadily ad- 
hered to. This is only to apply to the crowning end, v/hat is 
necessary in the subordinate pursuits of Health, Wealth, or Know- 
ledge. Each one must choose what pleasures to follow out, what 
desires to suppress, what training to undergo, so as on the whole 
to make the most of one's individual lot. Misconceptions of 
ends, ignorance of means, succumbing to passing impulses, are 
fatal to success in all pursuits ; the victim of such weaknessess 
loses the game, or must be saved by some other power. 

It has to be admitted, however, that the stretch of energy 
requisite to compass so large an end, costs a great deal to the 
system; it is a heavy per centage deducted from the realized 
happiness. There are not a few instances where enjoyment is 
attained v/ithout any plan at all, the accidents being favourable ; 
just as many persons have health, or wealth, without a thought 
of one or other; being all the happier that thought can be 
dispensed with. 

Some individualities are so unfitted for prudential foresight, 
that they must either come under the sway of others or be left to 
the accidents. A being of a higher order, looking before and 
after, will desire a plan, and endeavour to abide by it. Forming 
an estimate of life as a whole, such a being has a settled tone of 
mind correspondmg to that, not being much elated nor much 
depressed, by the fluctuations on one side or the other. If attain- 
ablf} by the individual, this settled and balanced estimate is 
worthy of the highest endeavours. It niight be artif).cially aided, 
by diary or record, which would recall to mind, more forcibly 
than the best memory, the tenor of life in the long run, to quell 
the exaggerations vS the passing moods. 



88 APPENDIX — CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE MIND. 



D. — Classifications of the Mind, 

THE INTELLECTUAL POWEES. 
1. THOMAS AQUINAS. 

Fii'st, Powers preceding the Intellect. 

I. — Yegetatiye. 1. Nutrition; 2. Growth; o,. Generation. 

II. — External Se^-ses (five in number). 

III. — Inteen-al Senses. 1. Common Sense (the sense that 
compares and distinguishes the objects of the several senses) ; 
2. Imagination; 3. ^stimativa (discerning in objects what is not 
revealed by the senses, as the enmity of the wolf to the sheep) ; 

4. Memory (including Beminiscence). 

Secondly, The Intellect — comprising, 1. Memory (the retention 
or conservation of species)] 2. Beason ; 3. Intelligentia (properly 
an act of the intellect) ; 4. both practical and speculative Eeason ; 

5. Conscience, 

2. HERBERT OF CHEEBURY. 

His classification is mixed, and we give it as it stands, includ- 
ing Emotions as well as Intellect. 

I. — Natueal Instinct (explained under the history of In- 
tuition, Appendix B). 

II. — Inteenal Sense. 1. l7icorporeal (having no physical 
antecedents, as joy, love, hope, trust) ; 2. Corporeal^ arising from 
the humores (hunger, thirst, lust, melancholy, &c.) ; 3. Objective 
feelings fah ohjectis inveHiJ, including certain pleasures and pains 
derived from external objects; 4. Mixed Sense, 

III. — ExTEENAL Senses, not confined absurdly to five; for 
there are as many senses as there are differ entice in the objects 
of sense. 

lY. — DiscuESUS, which is the faculty of intellect proper, 

3. GASSENDI. 

I. — Sense. 
II. — Phantasy. 

III. — Intellect. 1. Apprehension of God or Spirits; 2. Re- 
flection; and 3. Beasoning, 

4. THOMAS EEID. 

1. External Senses ; 2, Memory ; 3. C(0??ce;:)fiO7i or Simple Appre- 
hension; 4. Abstraction (Nominalism and Eealism) ; 5. Judgment 
(First Truths) ; 6. Beasoning (Demonstration and Probable Eeason- 
ing); 7. Taste, 

5. DUGALD STEWART. 

1. Consciousness; 2. External Perception; 3. Attention; 4. Con- 
ception; 5. Abstraction; 6. Association of Ideas; 7. Memory ; 8. 
Imagination; 9. Beasoiiing (itikhig u'p TiOgic), 

6. THOMAS BROWN. 

I. — ExTEENAL Affections. 1. Sensation; 2. Organic States. 
II. — Inteenal Affections. 1. Intellectual States. (1) Simple 



THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. — THE EMOTIONS. 89 

Suggestion (the laws of Association) ; and (2) Eelative Suggestion 
(Comparison, Eesemblance). 2. The Emotions (given in detail 
afterwards), 

7. SIR W. HAMILTON. 

Sir W. Hamilton enumerates six faculties: — 1. Fresentative 
(the Senses and Self-consciousness) ; 2. Conservative (mere retention 
in the memory) ; 3. Beproductive (depends on the Laws of Associ- 
ation) ; 4. Elahorative (Abstraction and Eeasoning) ; 5. Represen- 
tative (Imagination); 6. Regulative (the faculty of a priori ti^iths). 

8. SAMUEL BAILEY. 

I. — Discerning. 1. Through the Senses; 2. Not through the 
Senses {Introspection), 

II. — CONCEIYINO, having ideas or mental representations. 1. 
Conceiving without individual recognition; 2. Conceiving with indi- 
vidual recognition; 3. Imagining, or conceiving under new com- 
binations. 

III. — Believing, 1. On evidence, and 2. without evidence. 

IV. — Eeasoning, 1. Contingent, and 2. Demonstrative, 

9. HERBERT SPENCER. 

Mr. Spencer defines cognitions as the relations subsisting 
among our feelings, and classifies them as follows ; 1. Fresentative 
cognitions (localizing sensations) ; 2. Fresentative-representative, 
perception of the whole from a part (as when the sight of an 
orange brii_gs to mind all its other attributes);* 3. Representative; 
including all acts of recollection : 4. Re-representative, the higher 
abstractions formed by symbols, as in Mathematics. 

10. For the sake of comparison, we may add the classification 
adopted in the present volume. I. — The Antecedents of the 
Intellect. 1. Muscularity, and 2. The Senses. II. — The In- 
tellect. 1. Discrimination, or the sense of difference; 2. Simi- 
larity, or the sense of agreement ; and 3. Retentiveness, 



THE EMOTIONS. 
1. REID. 

His Active Powers are divided into three parts : — 

I. — Mechanical Principles of Action. 1. Instinct; 2. Rahit, 

II. — Animal Principles. 1. Appetites; 2. Desires (Power, 

Esteem, Knowledge) ; 3. Affections (Benevolent and Malevolent ; 

Passion, Disposition, Opinion). 

III. — Eational Principles. 1. Self-love; 2. Duty. 

2. DUGALD STEWART. * 

I. — Instinctive Principles of Action. 1. Appetites; 2. 
Desires (Knowledge, Society, Esteem, Power, Superiority); 3. 
Affections (Benevolent and Malevolent). 

II. — Eational and Governing Principles of Action. 1. 
Frudence; 2. Moral Facidty ; 3. Decency, or a regard to character; 
4, Sympathy; 5. the Ridiculous ; 6. Taste, 
24^ 



90 APPENDIX — CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE MIND. 

3. THOMAS BROWN. 

I. — Immediate, excited by present objects. I. Cheerfulness 
and Melancholy ; 2. Wonder; 3. Languor; 4. Beauty; 5. SuUimity ; 
6. tbe Ludicrous; 7. Moral feeling ; 8. Love and Hate; 9. Syin- 
^athy ; 10. Fride and LIumiUfy. 

II. — Eetrospectiye. 1. Anger; 2. Gratitude; 3. Simple Be- 
gret and Gladness ; 4. i^emorse and its opposite. 

III. — Pbospectiye. 1. The Desires (Continued Existence, 
Pleasure, Action, Society, Knowledge, Power, Affection, Glory, 
the Happiness of others. Evil to others); 2. Fears; 3. Hope; 
4. Expectation ; 6, Anticipation, 

4. SIR W. HAMILTON. 

Sir W. Hamilton has, first. Sensations (the five senses and 
organic sensations) and, secondly, the Sentiments or internal feel- 
ings. These are divided as follows : I. — The Contemplative, 
subdivided into, 1. Those of the subsidiary faculties, including 
(1) those of self- consciousness (Tedium and its opposite), and (2) 
those of Lmagination (Order, Symmetry, Unity in Variety) ; 2. 
Those of the Flahorative Faculty (Wit, the pleasures of Truth and 
Science, and the gratification of adapting Means to Ends). Beauty 
and Sublimity arise from the joint energy of the Imagination and 
the Understanding. 

II. — The Practical feelings relate to, 1. Self-Freservation 
(Hunger and Thirst, Loathing, Sorrow, Bodily pain. Anxiety, 
Eepose, &c.) ; 2. The Enjoyment of our Existence ; 3. The Freser- 
vation of the Species ; 4. Our Tendency towards Development and 
Ferfection; and 5. T1\iq Moral Laiu. 

5. HERBERT SPENCEE. 

Mr. Spencer's classification runs parallel to his arrangement 
of the intellectual powers. 1. Fresentative feelings, ordinarily 
called Sensations ; 2. Fresentative-representative feelings, including 
the simple emotions, as Terror ; 3. Representative feelings, such as 
those roused by a descriptive poet ; 4. Re-representative feelings, 
such as Property, Justice. 

6. KANT. 

I. — Senstjoijs, coming through — 1. Sense (Tedium, Content- 
ment), or 2. Lmagination (Taste). 

II. — Intellectual, from 1. the Concepts of the Understand- 
ing; and 2. the Ldeas of the Eeason. He takes the Affections and 
Fassions under the Will. 

7. HERBART. 

Herbart, and his followers Waitz and Nahlowsky. First, 
Feelings Proper. I. — Formal. 1. The general or elementary feel- 
ings (Oppression and Belief, Exertion and Ease, Seeking and 
Finding, Success and Defeat, Harmony and Contrast, Power and 
Weakness); 2. the Special or complicated feelings (Expectation, 
Astonishment, Doubt, &c.). 

II.— Qualitative. 1. Feelings of Sense; 2. higher or 7?i^e^ 
lectual feelings (Truth and Probability); the JEsthetic; the 
Moral ; the Eeligious. 



THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 91 

Secondly, Complex Emotional States. I. Those iNVOLViNa 
Conation (Desire or Aversion). 1. Sympathetic ieeling ; 2. Love, 
both Sensual and Ideal. 

II.— States RESTma on an organic foundation. 1. The 
Disposition or mood of mind, tone, or general hilarity; 2. the 
Affections, 

8. SCHLEIDLER. 

I. — Sense-Feeling. 1. Connected with bodily existence (Health, 
Depression, Hunger, &c.) ; 2. Organic (feelings of Special Sense) ; 
3. Inner Sense (Temper or high spirits). 

II. — Feelings connected with Ideas. 1. Ideas from Sense 
(Disgust, Sympathy with pain) ; 2. from Imagination (Hope and 
Fear); 3. from Understanding (Shame, Eeproach, &c.); 4. the 
lower ^Esthetic feelings (Physical Beauty). 

III. — Intellectual Feelings. 1. From acquiring Know- 
ledge; pain of idleness; 2. from Intellectual exercise (Novelty, 
System, Order, Symmetry, Harmony and Ehythm, Simple and 
Complex, Wit and Humour, Comic and Eidiculous). 

lY. — Eational Feelings. 1. Truth feelings; 2. the Higher 
yEsthetic; 3. Moral feelings ; 4. Sympathetic feelings ; 5. Religious 
feelings. 

THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 

We subjoin a brief note to illustrate the Principles of Associa- 
tion, as they have been stated by various authors. 

1. Aristotle had grasped the fact of association, holding that 
* every mental movement is determined to arise as the sequel of a 
certain other.' He mentions Similarity, Contrariety, Coadjacency 
or Contiguity, but gives no detailed exposition of them. 

2. Ludovicus Yives. * Quae simul sunt a Phantasia compre- 
hensa, si alterutrum occurrat, solet secum alterum representare.' 
Hamilton's Eeid, pp. 896 n, 898 n, 908 n. 

3. Hobbes gives the law of Contiguity. What causes the co- 
herence of ideas is ' their first coherence or consequence at that 
time when they are produced by sense.' A special insta»ce of this 
orderly succession, is Cause and Effect. 

4. Locke, in a short chapter, exemplifies the effect of Associa- 
tion in creating prejudice, antipathies, and obstacles to truth, 
but he does not gather up his illustrations under any generalized 
statement of associating principles. 

5. Hume enumerates Resemblance, Contiguity, and Cause and 
Effect ; and he resolves Contrast into Causation and Eesemblance. 

6. Gerard, in his '■ Essay on Genius,' states two kinds of prin- 
ciples of Association — Simple and Compound. Of the Simple, 
there are three: — 1. Resemblance, whenever perceptions 'at all 
resemble, one of them being present to the mind, will naturally 
transport it to the conception of the other'; 2. Contrariety; 3. 
Vicinity, ' the conception of any object naturally carries the 
thoughts to the idea of another object, which was connected 



92 APPENDIX — CLASSIFICATIONS OF THE MIND. 

with it either in place or time.' The Compound embrace (1) Co- 
existent qualities ; (2) Cause and Effect ; (3) Order. 

7. Beattie has — 1. Besemhlance, * one event or story leads us to 
think of another that is like it' ; 2. Contrariety; 3. Contiguity or 
Vicinity y * when the idea occurs of any place with which we are 
acquainted, we are apt to pass, by an easy and quick transition, 
to those of the adjoining places, of the persons who live there, &c.' ; 
4. Cause and Effect, [The statements of Gerard and Beattie are 
very imperfect.] 

8. Hartley has only Contiguity, which he expresses thus, 
' Sensations are associated when their impressions are either made 
precisely at the same instant of time, or in the contiguous suc- 
cessive instants.' Association is thus synchronous or successive. 

9. James Mill follows Hartley's statement. * Our ideas spring 
up or exist in the order in which the sensations existed, of which 
they are the copies.' He properly objects to making causation a 
distinct principle, but is unsuccessful in his attempt to resolve 
Eesemblance into Contiguity. Contrast arises generally from a 
vivid conjunction, 

10. Dugald Stewart (herein following Eeid) observes that the 
causes of Association are so diverse that they can hardly be 
reduced to a few heads, but enumerates as obvious modes of con- 
nection, Eesemblance (including Analogy J, Contrariety, Vicinity in 
time and place ; he adds as less obvious modes. Cause and Effect, 
Means and Ends, Premises and Conclusions, 

11. Thomas Brown mentions Contiguity, Besemhlance (including 
Analogy J, and Contrast, but thinks they may be reduced to one 
expression ; all Suggestion (his word for Association) may depend 
on prior co- existence, or on immediate proximity of feelings (not 
of objects). 

12. Sir W. Hamilton gives the following as general laws of 
mental succession. I.— The Law of Associahility or Possible Co- 
suggestion: — All thoughts of the same mental subjects are as-, 
sociable, or capable of suggesting each other. II. — The Law 
of liepetition or Direct Remembrance: — Thoughts co-identical in 
modiflcatipn, but differing in time, tend to suggest each other. 
III. — The Law of Redintegration, of Indirect Resemblance, or of 
Reminiscence : — Thoughts once co-identical in time, are, however 
different as mental modes, again suggestive of each other, and 
that in the mutual order which they originally held. 

His Special Laivs are those : — 1. The Law of Similars ; — Things 
— thoughts resembling each other (be the resemblance simple or 
analogical) are mutually suggestive. Since resembling modifica- 
tions are, to us, in their resembling points, identical, they call up 
each other according to the Law of Repetition. 2. The Law of 
Contrast, 3. The Law of Coadjacency, embracing Cause and Effect, 
Whole and Parts, Substance and Attribute, Sign and Signified. 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 93 



E. — Meanings of certain Terms. 

m 

Consciousness. This may be considered the leading term of 
Mental Science ; all the most subtle distinctions and the most 
debated questions are unavoidably connected with it. The employ- 
ment of the word in this treatise has been, as far as possible, con- 
sistent with the views maintained as to the fundamental nature of 
Perception and Knowledge. 

Some advantage may be gained by a brief review of the various 
significations of the term. In popular language, two or three 
gradations of meaning may be traced. In one class of applica- 
tions, consciousness is mental life, as opposed to torpor or insen- 
sibility; the loss of consciousness is mental extinction for the 
time ; while, on the other hand, a more than ordinary wakefulness 
and excitement is a heightened form of consciousness. In a second 
cl^s of meanings, the subjective state, as opposed to the objective, 
is more particularly intended ; when a person is said to be mor- 
bidly or excessively conscious, there is indicated an excessive 
attention to the feelings and the thoughts, and a slender amount 
of occupation with outward things. It is this meaning that deter- 
mined Eeid and Stewart to apply the name to the distinctive 
faculty of the mental philosopher, in cognizing operations of the 
mind. 

If, as is generally maintained, the second meaning be too 
narrow, there is no alternative but to abide by the first or more 
comprehensive meaning. In this case, the term is the widest in 
mental philosophy ; nay more, if consciousness is the only pos- 
sible criterion of existence, it is the widest term in the vocabulary 
of mankind. The sum of all consciousnesses is the sum of all 
existences. 

Consciousness, then, is divided into the two great departments 
— the Object consciousness, and the Subject consciousness ; the 
greatest transition, or antithesis, within the compass of our being. 
When putting forth energy, as in muscular exertion, and in the 
activity of the senses, we are objectively conscious ; in pleasure 
or pain, and in memory, we are subjectively conscious. 

Great as is the contrast of the two modes of activity, there are 
designations that mix and confound them ; the chief of these is 
the term * Sensation,' next to be adverted to. 

A singular position, in the matter of Consciousness, has been 
taken up by Sir W. Hamilton, and by the Germans almost, uni- 
versally ; namely, that Consciousness as a whole, is based on the 
knowing or intellectual consciousness, or is possible, only through 
knowledge. We feel only as we Imoiu that we feel ; we are pleased 
only as we know that we are pleased. It is not the intensity of a 
feeling that makes the feeling ; but the operation of cognizing or 
knowing the state of feeling. 

It must be granted that we cannot have any feeling without 



94 APPENDIX^ — MEANINGS OF TERMS. 

having some knowledge of it ; it is tlie nature of mental excite- 
ment to leave some trace of itself in the memory. Farther, any 
strong emotion calls attention to itself ; it may also, however, 
lead S^ttention away to the object cause, and diminish the subjec- 
tive consciousness. On any view, the knowledge or attention, 
although an accompaniment of the state, is not its foundation. If 
this were so, the increase of the cognitive act would be the 
increase of the feeling ; whereas the fact is the reverse ; the less 
that we are occupied in the properly intellectual function, the 
more are we possessed with the feeling proper. 

It is most accordant with the facts, to regard Feeling as a dis- 
tinct conscious element, Avhether cognized or not, whether much 
or little attended to in the way of discrimination, agreement, or 
memory. The three functions of the mind are so interwoven and 
implicated that it is scarcely, if it all, possible to find any one abso- 
lutely alone in its exercise ; we cannot be all Feeling, without any 
share of an intellectual element ; we cannot be all Will, without 
either feeling or intellect. The nearest approach to isolation is in 
the objective consciousness, which, in the moment of its highest 
engrossment, is an exclusively Intellectual occupation, 

Se:n'SATIO]S'. The concurrence of various contrasting pheno- 
mena ill the fact expressed by Sensation, renders this word often 
ambiguous. 

1. In Sensation, there is a combination of physical facts, with 
a mental fact. Thus, in sight, the physical processes are known 
to be — the action of light on the retina, a series of nerve currents, 
and certain outgoing influences to muscles and viscera ; while the 
mental phenomenon is the feeling, or subject state accompanying 
these. The word is properly applicable, and should be confined 
in its axoplication, to the strictly mental fact. 

2. In the great contrast of the object and the subject con- 
sciousness, the word Sensation is applied to both the one and the 
other. This is owing to the repeated transitions between the two 
in actual sensation. In looking at a beautiful prospect, the mind 
passes, by fits and starts, from the one attitude to the other ; while 
engrossed with the extent, figure, distance, and even with the 
colours of the scene, the attitude is objective ; when conscious of 
the pleasure, the attitude is subjective. Now, the word Sensation 
apxolies to both attitudes ; unless when put in contrast to Percep- 
tion, which, in its reference, is purely objective. In this last case, 
Sensation is limited to the pleasurable or painful accompaniment 
of the state. 

The contrast of Sensation and Perception is thus the contrast 
between the sensitive and the cognitive, intellectual, or knowledge- 
giving functions. Hence Perception is applied to the knowledge 
obtained both directly and indirectly through the exercise of the 
Senses ; the one is called immediate perception, and the other 
mediate, or acquired perception. 

It is Avith reference to this contrast, that Hamilton enunciates 
his law of the universe relative of Sensation and Perception ; ihe 



PRESENTATION AND REPEESENTATION. 95 

meaning of which is that the more the mind is subjectively- 
engaged, the less the objective attention, and conversely. 

3. In Sensation, past experiences are inextricably woven with 
a present impression ; a circumstance tending to confuse the boun- 
dary line between Sense and Intellect. When we look at a tree, 
the present consciousness is not the bare result of the present 
stimulation, but that combined with a sum total of past impres- 
sions. In short, the mind's retentiveness overlays all present 
effects ; and what seems sensation is an actual stimulation mixed 
with memory. 

Farther, as in Sensation we must be conscious of Agreement 
and of Difference, which are also intellectual functions, it is clear 
that there cannot be such a thing as Sensation (in the cognitive 
meaning) without processes of the Intellect. Hence the question 
as to the origin of our Ideas in Sense, is charged with ambiguity ; 
yet many of the arguments in favour of Innate Ideas are founded 
on the supposition that the experience of the Senses excludes such 
intellectual elements as Likeness, Unlikeness, Equality and Pro- 
portion ; whereas it is impossible to exclude such attributes from 
the perceptive process. 

Pkesentation" and Eepbesentation. These words are made, 
by some metaphysicians, the starting point in the exposition of 
the mind. The phenomena indicated by them have been fully 
recognized in the present work, although under other names. 

* Presentation ' and * Intuition ' are applied to signify the 
cognition of an object present to the view, in all its circum- 
stantials, and definite relationships in space, and in time : it is the 
full present actuality of sensation. In looking at a circle drawn 
on paper before us, the mental cognition is in the highest degree 
individual or concrete; it is a jpresentation^ or intuition. But 
when, after seeing many circles, we form an abstract or general 
conception of a circle, embodied although that may be in an 
individual, we are said to possess a representation, or to be in a 
state of representative consciousness. So far, the distinction coin- 
dides with the distinction between the concrete, i/i its extreme 
form of present individuality, and the general or abstract. 

The distinction equally holds in subjective cognitions. An 
actual fit of anger is presentative ; the reflecting on it, when past, 
is representative. The one is an intuition, the other a thought. 

The Presentative or Intuitive knowledge is also termed 
Immediate ; the Eepresentative is Mediate; the one is known in 
itself, the other through something else. The individual circle 
looked at is known by an immediate act ; the general property is 
known mediately through some concrete circle or circles. Sensa- 
tion is thus contrasted with Perception ; the sensation is what is 
actually felt ; the perception is the additional something that is 
suggested. Colour is sensation; distance (in the Berkeleian view) 
is perception, representation, or thought. 

Hamilton applies the distinction, as already seen (p. 208), in 
distinguishing the theories of External Perception. His own view 



96 APPENDIX— MEANINGS OF TEEMS. 

is Presentationism ; he holds that the consciousness of external 
reality is immediate like the consciousness of colour, touch, or 
resistance. 

Presentation thus corresponds to Sensation in the third meaning 
above given; a mode of consciousness, however, which is sup- 
posable only, and not a matter of fact. What we believe to be a 
present sensation is, in reality, a complicated product of past and 
present impressions, a resultant of numerous shocks of difference 
and of agreement. 

Personal Identity. Much controversy has been raised on 
the question as to our personal or continual identity. Some of 
the difficulty arises from the ambiguity of the words Sameness, or 
Identity. There are degrees of sameness ; we call two trees the 
same, merely because they are of one species. The sort of 
identity, or amount of sameness, intended, under personal identity, 
is when we call an individual tree the same throughout its whole 
existence, from germination to final decay. A human body is 
called the same, or identical, through its whole life, in spite of 
important diversities ; for not only are the actual particles re- 
peatedly changed, but the plan, or arrangement, of those particles 
is greatly altered in the different stages. A block of marble, a 
statue, a building, retain a much higher identity, than a plant or 
animal. 

In living beings, therefore, unbroken continuity is the feature 
of the sameness. The English nation is called the same nation 
down from the Saxon times. The identity of the United States 
of America would probably be counted from the date of the Inde- 
pendence, which shows that an unbroken political system is the 
idea that we form of national identity. 

It is, however, in the mind, or subjective life, that the question 
of sameness is most subtle and perplexed. There are different 
modes of expressing the identity of a being endowed with mind. 
One is the notion of a persistent substance distinct from, and under- 
lying all the passing moods of consciousness — of feeling, thought, 
and will ; a permanent thread, holding together the variable and 
shifting manifestations that make our mental life. Of such a sub- 
stance there can be no proof offered ; it is purely hypothetical, but 
the hypothesis has been found satisfactory to many, and has been 
considered as self-evident or intuitively certain. Berkeley, in re- 
pudiating a substratum of anatter, maintained this hypothetical 
groundwork of mind. Hume declined both entities; resolving 
matter and mind alike into the sequence of conscious states. 

Locke expressed the fact of identity as the ' consciousness of 
present and past actions in the person to whom they belong.' 
Person ' is a thinking, intelligent bein?, that has reason and re- 
flection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking being, 
in different times and places ; which it does only by that conscious- 
ness which is inseparable from thinking.' * For, since consciousness 
always accompanies thinking, and is what makes every one to be 
what each calls ' self,' and thereby distinguishes self from all 



PERSONAL IDENTITY. 9 



» 



>ther thinking beings ; in this alone consists personal identity '— 
''Essay, Book II., chap. 27). 

Locke has been attacked on various grounds. First, by Butler 
and others, for holding that consciousness makes self; the objectors 
holding the view first stated, that the personality is something 
prior to and apart from the consciousness, as truth precedes and 
is distinct from the knowledge of it. Eeid considers it very strange 
that personal identity should be confounded with the evidence 
that we have of our personal identity, that is, with consciousness. 
"We must be the same, before we are known to be the same. Self 
is one thing ; the cognizance of self another thing. 

In the second place, Locke's view has been supposed to lead to 
the absurdity that a man may be, and not be, at the same time, 
the person that did a particular action, namely, something that 
has entirely passed out of his consciousness. Consciousness is fugi- 
tive: personality is enduring and consecutive. This objection 
might have been fenced by introducing the jpotential or possible 
consciousness along with the actual. Any experience that has 
ever entered into our mental personality retains a link, stronger 
or feebler, with the present, and is within the possibility of being 
reproduced. 

Another criticism is that consciousness is confounded with 
memory. Locke, however, understood consciousness in a large 
meaning, as containing the memory of the past, as well as the cog- 
nizance of the actual or present. Yet he ought to have adverted 
to the distinction between present and remembered states, as vital 
in this question. The best metaphysicians agree that the question 
at issue involves the nature of our belief in memory (see, among 
others, Brown, Lect. XIII.). "We have certain states that we call 
present, actual, immediate, as in the consciousness of a present 
light, sound, or taste. "We have another class of experiences when 
these effects are no longer supported in the actual, but remembered, 
or retained in the ideal ; with them is involved the belief that they 
are not merely what they are now, but are also the remains or 
products of former states of the kind termed actual ; that they 
somehow represent an experience in past time, as well as consti- 
tute an experience in present time. 

This memory and belief of the past is not fully exhausted by 
its mere contrast with the present ; there is farther contained in 
it, the orderly sequence or succession of our mental states. Each 
item of the past is viewed as preceding some things also past, and 
as succeeding others. The total past is an orderly retrospect or 
record, w^herein everything has a definite place. 

Thus the fact of unbroken succession enters into identity in 
the mental personality, as well as into the identity of a plant, or 
animal, a society, or a nation. The mind, however, is self- 
recording, and preserves its history from an early date; the 
identity prior to each one's earliest recollection of self, is only 
objective, like a tree ; the parents and others are the testimony to 
the succession of the individual in the years of mental incompetency. 



98 APPENDIX — MEANINGS OF TERMS. 

The Belief in Memory may probably be regarded as standing 
at one remove from an ultimate law of the mind, namely, the 
law that connects Belief with our Spontaneous and Voluntary 
Activity (p. 337). 

Full recollection of anything assigns it its point in the stream 
or succession. This is the difference between memory and imagi- 
nation : both are ideal as opposed to present actuality : they are 
faculties of the concrete as opposed to abstraction ; but memory 
can, and imagination cannot, find a determinate place for its 
objects in the continuous record of the mental life. 

Sl^stakce. This word may be viewed, says Hamilton, either 
as derived from * subsistendo,' what subsists by itself, or from 
* substando,' what subsists in its accidents, being the basis of 
qualities or attributes. The two derivations come to the same 
thing. 

Common language has always set forth the contrast of sub- 
stance and quality or attribute. But as everything that we know 
or can conceive may be termed a quality, or attribute, if all 
qualities are supposed withdrawn, there is nothing left to stand 
for substance. Gold has the qualities of weight, hardness, duc- 
tility, colour, &c. ; what then is the substance * gold ' ? Matter 
has the property * Inertia ; ' what is the substance ? 

One way out of the difficulty is to postulate an unknown, and 
unknowable entity, underlying, and in some mysterious way hold- 
ing together, the various attributes. We are said to be driven by - 
an intuitive and irresistible tendency, to make this assumption ; 
which intuition is held to justify us in such an extreme measure. 
There is an unknowable substance matter, the subject of the at- 
tribute inertia, and of all the special modes of the different kinds 
of matter — gold, marble, water, oxygen, and the rest. The same 
hypothetical unknown entity, is expressed in another antithesis — 
the noumenon as against the phenomenon; what is, in contrast to 
what appears. 

Another way out of the difficulty is to regard the common 
language as itself unguarded and inaccurate, and as demanding 
qualification and adjustment. Instead of treating all the energies 
of a thing as attributes predicable of an unknown essence, a dis- 
tinction is made between the fundamental, constant, inerasible 
attributes, and those that are variable, fluctuating, or separable. 
Thus, as regards * matter,' the property ' inertia' is fundamental 
and irremovable ; the properties — colour, transparency, hardness, 
elasticity, oxidation, &c., are variable and fluctuating. * Inertia' 
would then be the 'substance' of matter in general; this, to- 
gether with a certain specific gravity, colour, ductility, &c. , would 
be the substance of gold. Such a rendering comes much nearer 
to the popular apprehension of substance, than the impalpable and 
unknown entity. A thing is substantial that resists, as a stone 
wall ; a piece of gauze, a column of smoke, a ghost, are called un- 
substantial ; they have little or no resisting power. 

In this view, substance corresponds with the defining property 



SUBSTANCE. 99 

of each object : what is also called in Aristotelian, and likewise in 
common language, the Essence. 

The Substance of Body, or matter generally, would thus be 
what is common to all Body — Inertia. 

With respect to Mind, the question of Substance is the question 
of Personal Identity in another shape. The same theorists that 
assume a persistent unknown something as underlying all con- 
sciousness, with a view to Personal Identity, would call this 
entity, the Substance of Mind, and the known functions of Mind, 
its qualities or attributes. According to the other view, the Sub- 
stance of Mind is the three fundamental and defining attributes ; 
those powers or functions, which, being present, constitute mind, 
and in whose absence we do not apply the name. They are Feel- 
ing, Yolition, and Intellect; these may vary in degree to an 
indefinite extent, but in some degree they must be conjoined in 
everything that we call mind. 

A second mode of justifying the current antithesis of substance 
and quality, without assuming an inconceivable entity, is to call 
the total of any concrete, the Substance, and each one of its pro- 
perties mentioned singly, a Quality, or attribute. Of the total 
conjunction of powers, called gold, — weight, hardness, colour, &c., 
are the qualities in the detail. 

It has been previously seen in what acceptations Substance was 
used by Aristotle. Locke regards the idea of Substance as a 
complex idea, the aggregate of the ideas of the distinctive attri- 
butes. Of substance in general, he allows an obscure, vague, 
indistinct idea, grov^^ing out of the relationship of supporter and 
support, a general relative notion. If we call any qualities modes 
or accidents, we imply a correlative subject or substratum, of 
which they are modes or accidents. 

Peid says : — ' To me, nothing seems more absurd than that there 
should be extension without anything extended, or motion without 
anything moved; yet I cannot give reasons for my opinion, 
because it seems to me self-evident, and an immediate, dictate of 
my nature.* Hamilton considers that his Law of the Conditioned 
is applicable to explain Substance and Accident. We are com- 
pelled, he says, to pass beyond what appears the phenomenal to 
an existence absolute, unknown, and incomprehensible. But this 
compulsion is not itself an ultimate fact of mind ; it grows out of 
the principle of the Conditioned, from which also springs our 
belief of the law of Cause. (Eeid, p. 935). 

It has been made a question, whether Space and Time are Sub- 
stances. Cudworth, Newton, and Clarke, held that they are at- 
tributes, and imply a substance, which must be God. 

According to Fichte : — 'Attributes synthetically united give 
substance, and substance analyzed gives attributes ; a continued 
substratum, or supporter of attributes, is an impossible concep- 
tion,' 



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